Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I write code using Cursor

arguingwithalgorithms.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 426 posts

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#11

Post by ramijames »

fassssst wrote: post #6
vishal-padia wrote: post #2

In the article, you mentioned that you've been writing code for 36 years, so don't you feel IDEs like cursor make you feel less competent? Meaning I loved the process of scratching my head over a problem and then coming to a solution but now we have AI Agents solving the problems and optimizing code which takes the fun out of it.

For me it’s like riding an e-bike. More fun because I can go faster and see and do more.

And you get less tired. I can complete more work because I'm not always getting stuck in minutia. I can focus on architecture, structure, and refactoring instead of line-by-line writing of code.

I'm not saying that I don't like writing code. I'm just saying that doing a lot of it can be mentally exhausting. Sometimes I'd just prefer to ship feature-complete stuff on-time and on-budget, then go back to my kids and wife without feeling like my brain is mush.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#12

Post by forgotoldacc »

vishal-padia wrote: post #2

In the article, you mentioned that you've been writing code for 36 years, so don't you feel IDEs like cursor make you feel less competent? Meaning I loved the process of scratching my head over a problem and then coming to a solution but now we have AI Agents solving the problems and optimizing code which takes the fun out of it.

I feel like in the early stages of becoming a programmer, learning how to do all those little baseline problems is fun.

But eventually you get to a point where you've solved variations of the problem hundreds of times before, and it's just hours of time being burnt away writing it again with small adjustments.

It's like getting into making physical things with only a screwdriver and a hammer. Working with your hands on those little projects is fun. Then eventually you level up your skills and realize making massive things is much easier with a power drill and some automated equipment, and gives you time to focus on the design and intricacies of far more complicated projects. Though there are always those times where you just want to spend a weekend fiddling with basics for fun.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#15

Post by NitpickLawyer »

christkv wrote: post #10

I have not tried cursor using a combination of copilot and chatgpt o1. Is cursor considered a better solution? I find it takes the tedium out of work and allows me to focus on the important bits. Right now working on a flutter app and it’s great to be able to quickly try out different ideas iterating quicker towards a final design than before LLMs.

> Is cursor considered a better solution?

It's the best I've tried so far. I only tried copilot when it came out, so it might have improved a lot since then, perhaps someone using both now can chime in.

There's two things I like about cursor - the overall multi-file edit -> I use this for scaffolding whatever I need, at a high level, and claude 3.5 seems a bit better than 4o for this.

The tab thing really works, and it will surprise you. They don't do just autocomplete, they also do auto-action complete so after you edit something, your cursor (heh) goes to the next predicted place where you're likely to make an edit. And it works ootb most times, and a few times I've gone "huh, might have missed that, if it weren't for the cursor going there".

So that's my current workflow. Zoomed out scaffolding and then going in and editing / changing whatever it is that I need, and cursor has two really strong features for both cases.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#16

Post by elashri »

My problem with all AI code assistants is usually the context. I am not sure how cursor fare in this regard but I always struggle to feed the model enough of the code project to be useful for me on a level more than providing line per line suggestion (which copilot does anyway). I don't have experience with cursor or cody (other alternative) and how they tackle this problem by using embeddings (which I suppose have similar context limit).

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#17

Post by friggeri »

I recently started using Cursor for all my typescript/react personal projects and the increase in productivity has been staggering. Not only has it helped me execute way faster, similar to the OP I also find that it prevents me from getting sidetracked by premature abstraction/optimization/refactoring.

I recently went from an idea for a casual word game (aka wordle) to a fully polished product in about 2h, which would have taking me 4 or 5 times that if I hadn’t used Cursor. I estimate that 90% of the time was spent thinking about the product, directing the AI, and testing and about 10% of the time actually coding.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#18

Post by pama »

What are the closest Emacs packages and flows for something similar to Cursor? Is the ability to use a tab in this way something that can be simply instructed or finetuned?

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#19

Post by zdragnar »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #15
christkv wrote: post #10

I have not tried cursor using a combination of copilot and chatgpt o1. Is cursor considered a better solution? I find it takes the tedium out of work and allows me to focus on the important bits. Right now working on a flutter app and it’s great to be able to quickly try out different ideas iterating quicker towards a final design than before LLMs.

> Is cursor considered a better solution? It's the best I've tried so far. I only tried copilot when it came out, so it might have improved a lot since then, perhaps someone using both now can chime in. There's two things I like about cursor - the overall multi-file edit -> I use this for scaffolding whatever I need, at a high level, and claude 3.5 seems a bit better than 4o for this. The tab thing really works, and…

Didn't sublime text have this with snippets? I vaguely recall setting some up with tab stops for the parts that need manual completion.

Not AI, but it was nice to have back 10-ish or whatever years ago.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#20

Post by szundi »

elashri wrote: post #16

My problem with all AI code assistants is usually the context. I am not sure how cursor fare in this regard but I always struggle to feed the model enough of the code project to be useful for me on a level more than providing line per line suggestion (which copilot does anyway). I don't have experience with cursor or cody (other alternative) and how they tackle this problem by using embeddings (which I suppose have s…

Cursor is pretty uniqe and advanced in this regard. They tell a lot about this in the Lex Fridman podcast, very interesting.
Post reply on HN