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Cursor 3

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Re: Cursor 3

#162

Man, I wish they'd keep the old philosophy of letting the developer drive and the agent assist. I feel like this design direction is leaning more towards a chat interface as a first class citizen and the code itself as a secondary concern. I really don't like that. Even when I'm using AI agents to write code, I still find myself spending most of my time reading and reasoning about code. Showing me little snippets of…

My guess would be this is less driven by product philosophy, more driven by trying to maximise chances of a return on a very large amount of funding in an incredibly tough market up against formidable, absurdly well-funded competitors. It's a very tough spot they're in. They have a great product in the code-first philosophy, but it may turn out it's too small a market where the margins will just be competed away to z…

You know, it’s stuff like this making me think maybe the anti capitalists have a point.

A company makes a popular product customers like, but to satisfy the VCs the company must make a product the customers don’t like but could make the VCs more money.

Not sure this is the “invisible hand” Adam Smith had in mind.

Re: Cursor 3

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess would be this is less driven by product philosophy, more driven by trying to maximise chances of a return on a very large amount of funding in an incredibly tough market up against formidable, absurdly well-funded competitors. It's a very tough spot they're in. They have a great product in the code-first philosophy, but it may turn out it's too small a market where the margins will just be competed away to z…

It is interesting that i find composer to be one of my favorites as while it is a bit dumb it is about 100x faster than the fat boys. Sometimes u need the beef of opus but 80% composer is plenty.

[dead]

Re: Cursor 3

#164
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claude Code is where you move up one abstraction layer. Almost everyone using it productively has spend a lot of time working on their harness, ensuring that everything is planned out and structured such that all that is left is really type in the code. This typically works without error. Before that, you interact a lot via Claude Code in whatever abstraction you feel is right. That's basically it. You can review cha…

> Cursor, same as Copilot, has been used by people who are basically pair programming with the AI. So, on abstraction down. This is not really true anymore. Cursor has better cloud agents than Claude. The multi-agent experience is better, the worktree management is better. Tagging specific code or files in chat is better. It's hard for me to express the level of pain and frustration I feel going from Cursor to Claude…

I think you are still speaking in the lower abstraction in terms of zwaps' provided understanding. "Tagging specific code" or "files" is likely the type of interfacing most Claude Code users are _not_ doing.

Instead they are defining architecture through specs and verification-loops and attempting to one-shot solutions fitting clear tests. On reflection, I personally don't have many prompts with CC referencing files or code directly, rather I speak in specifications I can then track to a given instance of work in review.

This isn't to suggest you can't work at this abstraction in cursor or w/e interface, but the features you suggest are hardly relevant to the divide zwaps is identifying.

Re: Cursor 3

#165

Man, I wish they'd keep the old philosophy of letting the developer drive and the agent assist. I feel like this design direction is leaning more towards a chat interface as a first class citizen and the code itself as a secondary concern. I really don't like that. Even when I'm using AI agents to write code, I still find myself spending most of my time reading and reasoning about code. Showing me little snippets of…

> I still want to _code_ not just vibe my way through tickets. Now we have 3 ways of coding: * vim / emacs - full manual * VSCode / IntelliJ - semi-automatic * ClaudeCode/Codex/OpenCode/... - fully automated Cursor can't stay in between

Why?

Are you saying they can’t compete with VS Code in the semi-automatic space?

Re: Cursor 3

#166

Man, I wish they'd keep the old philosophy of letting the developer drive and the agent assist. I feel like this design direction is leaning more towards a chat interface as a first class citizen and the code itself as a secondary concern. I really don't like that. Even when I'm using AI agents to write code, I still find myself spending most of my time reading and reasoning about code. Showing me little snippets of…

The philosophy still works, you just have to change your view. Instead of trying to work side by side with the agent on every turn (inside of your IDE), instead the agent performs a unit of work and then you review it. You can use your IDE to view the diff, or another diffing tool.

If you've dug in sufficiently on plan mode, then what the agent is executing is not a surprise and shouldn't need input. If it does, the plan was insufficient and/or the context around the request (agents.md, lessons.md, or whatever tools and documents you use ) weren't sufficient.

EDIT: Maybe it doesn't work in cursor, but I continue to use vscode to review diffs and dig in on changes.

Re: Cursor 3

#167

So it has converged to the same UI/UX as the Claude/Codex desktop apps. If that's the case, why use Cursor over those more canonical apps?

For $20 a month, I can plan and implements a couple features in 4 hours with Claude. Then I have to wait. For $20 a month, I can plan and implement thousands of features using Composer 2 or Auto with Cursor. The usage limits are insanely higher. Yes, the depth of understanding is not Opus 4.6, but most work doesn't need that. And the work that does need it I pass to Claude. I can code 8 hours a day using LLMs as my p…

You can do this with copilot, for the $40/mo range, AND you get to use opus 4.6 for all of it. Copilot is absurdly cheap if you can make it fit your work profile.

Re: Cursor 3

#168

Man, I wish they'd keep the old philosophy of letting the developer drive and the agent assist. I feel like this design direction is leaning more towards a chat interface as a first class citizen and the code itself as a secondary concern. I really don't like that. Even when I'm using AI agents to write code, I still find myself spending most of my time reading and reasoning about code. Showing me little snippets of…

My guess would be this is less driven by product philosophy, more driven by trying to maximise chances of a return on a very large amount of funding in an incredibly tough market up against formidable, absurdly well-funded competitors. It's a very tough spot they're in. They have a great product in the code-first philosophy, but it may turn out it's too small a market where the margins will just be competed away to z…

The cancer: growth at every cost or die.

God forbids you make a great product in a specific niche and are happy with the money flowing.

Nope, has to be more.

Re: Cursor 3

#169
I used to have a pro-cursor subscription, but it was way too expensive because I'd always hit my limit. I realized I could just use claude code + the free version of cursor for autocomplete and it worked even better. At this point, I'm not understanding the value that cursor is bringing. A souped up claude code? All I have to do is wait a few months and anything useful will be in claude code or codex or whatever.
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