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How I write code using Cursor

arguingwithalgorithms.com

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Re: How I write code using Cursor

#201

Post by cloudking »

DeathArrow wrote: post #193

From what I see, it's not better than GitHub Copilot for my use case. I work in large code bases, where the code in one files depends on the code in other files. Copilot seems to only be aware of code in current file, unless I write very long prompts to direct it to specifically look in some other files. So for making changes to existing code, Copilot isn't helpful and neither seems to Cursor. I can use Copilot to wr…

Are you using the @codebase feature? It will perform a search across the codebase for files relevant to your query and suggest changes across files.

https://docs.cursor.com/chat/codebase

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#202

Post by cynicalpeace »

zkry wrote: post #198
cynicalpeace wrote: post #175

It's amazing how little of my colleagues don't use Cursor simply because they haven't taken the 10 minutes to set it up. It's amazing how many naysayers there are about Cursor. There are many here and they obviously don't use Cursor. I know this because they point out pitfalls that Cursor barely runs into, and their criticism is not about Cursor, but about AI code in general. Some examples: "I tried to create a TODO…

I've noticed that tools like Cursor doesn't really seem to make difference in the end. The good software developers are still the good software developers, regardless of editors. I don't think you should be upset or worried that people aren't adopting these tools as you think they should. If the tool really lives up to its hype then the non-adopters will fall behind and, for example, be forced to switch to Cursive. T…

> The good software developers are still the good software developers

Correct. Because they know they need to use the correct tools for the job.

> If the tool really lives up to its hype then the non-adopters will fall behind

This is already happening. I'm able to out-deploy many of my competitors because I'm using Cursor.

Have you actually spent much time with Cursor? The comparison to "Jump to definition" is pretty bad. You also misspelled its name twice.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#203

Post by mherrmann »

In my experience, Cursor writes average code. This makes sense, if you think about it. The AI was trained on all the code that is publicly available. This code is average by definition.

I'm below average in a lot of programming languages and tools. Cursor is extremely useful there because I don't have to spend tens of minutes looking up APIs or language syntax.

On the other hand, in areas I know more about, I feel that I can still write better code than Cursor. This applies to general programming as well. So even if Cursor knows exactly how to write the syntax and which function to invoke, I often find the higher-level code structure it creates sub-optimal.

Overall, Cursor is an extremely useful tool. It will be interesting to see whether it will be able to crawl out of the primordial soup of averages.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#204

Post by yunwal »

CrendKing wrote: post #32

I've been using AI to solve isolated problems, mainly as a replacement of search engine specifically for programming. I'm still not convinced of these "write whole block of code for me" type of use case. Here's my arguments against the videos from the article. 1. Snake case to camelCase. Even without AI we can already complete these tasks easily. VSCode itself has command of "Transform to Camel Case" for selection. I…

> Snake case to camelCase > VSCode itself has command of "Transform to Camel Case"

I never understand arguments like this. I have no idea what the shortcut for this command is. I could learn this shortcut, sure, but tomorrow I’ll need something totally different. Surely people can see the value of having a single interface that can complete pretty much any small-to-medium-complexity data transformation. It feels like there’s some kind of purposeful gaslighting going on about this and I don’t really get the motive behind it.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#205

Post by wruza »

withinboredom wrote: post #102
Hedepig wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you had a go with the o1 range of models?

Yesterday, I got into an argument on the internet (shocking, I know), so I pulled out an old gravitation simulator that I had built for a game. I had chatGPT give me the solar system parameters, which worked fine, but my simulation had an issue that I actually never resolved. So, working with the AI, I asked it to convert the simulation to constant-time (it was currently locked to render path -- it's over a decade ol…

This sums up my experience as well. You can get an idea or just a direction from it, but itself AI stumbles upon its own legs instantly in any non-tutorial task. Sometimes I envy and at the same time feel sorry for successful AI-enabled devs, cause it feels like they do boilerplate and textbook features all day. What a release if something can write it for you.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#206

Post by kccqzy »

scosman wrote: post #183
scosman wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started like this. Then I came around and can’t imagine going back. It’s kinda like having a really smart new grad, who works instantly, and has memorized all the docs. Yes I have to code review and guide it. That’s an easy trade off to make for typing 1000 tokens/s, never losing focus, and double checking every detail in realtime. First: it really does save a ton of time for tedious tasks. My best example is test…

Another fun example from yesterday: pasted a blog post in markdown into a HTML comment. Selected it and told sonnet to convert it to HTML using another blog post as a style reference. Done in 5 seconds.

And how do you trust that it didn't just alter or omit some sentences from your blog post?

I just use Pandoc for that purpose and it takes 30 seconds, including the time to install pandoc. For code generation where you'll review everything, AI makes sense; but for such conversion tasks, it doesn't because you won't review the generated HTML.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#207

Post by cynicalpeace »

mherrmann wrote: post #203

In my experience, Cursor writes average code. This makes sense, if you think about it. The AI was trained on all the code that is publicly available. This code is average by definition. I'm below average in a lot of programming languages and tools. Cursor is extremely useful there because I don't have to spend tens of minutes looking up APIs or language syntax. On the other hand, in areas I know more about, I feel th…

This is true. But with a little push here and there you can usually avoid the sub-optimal high level code structure. That's why it makes so much sense to have it in the IDE.

You can see in general anything AI produces is pretty average.

But people who buy software don't care that the code behind it is average. As long as it works.

Whereas people who buy text, images and video do care.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#209

Post by sebastiansm »

scosman wrote: post #179
CrendKing wrote: post #32

I've been using AI to solve isolated problems, mainly as a replacement of search engine specifically for programming. I'm still not convinced of these "write whole block of code for me" type of use case. Here's my arguments against the videos from the article. 1. Snake case to camelCase. Even without AI we can already complete these tasks easily. VSCode itself has command of "Transform to Camel Case" for selection. I…

I started like this. Then I came around and can’t imagine going back. It’s kinda like having a really smart new grad, who works instantly, and has memorized all the docs. Yes I have to code review and guide it. That’s an easy trade off to make for typing 1000 tokens/s, never losing focus, and double checking every detail in realtime. First: it really does save a ton of time for tedious tasks. My best example is test…

What is the best workflow to code with an AI?

Copy and paste the code to the Claude website? Or use an extension? o something else?

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