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How I write code using Cursor

arguingwithalgorithms.com

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Re: How I write code using Cursor

#291

Post by miningape »

regularfry wrote: post #119
miningape wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see the world where you didn't use AI and instead invested the time to make yourself a stronger programmer. A react wordle clone isn't something most developers would need 2 hours to make (sure maybe the styling / hosting AROUND the wordle clone might take longer) - I'm not saying you're a bad programmer or a bad person but what is the opportunity cost of using AI here? Are you optimising yourself int…

Counterpoint: learning to make better buggy-whips is fun but, in the grand scheme of things, also a local minimum.

The existence of other minima does not imply all minima are equal.

In fact, without knowing the entire graph it's impossible to say whether a particular minima is the global minima or just a local one.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#292

Post by kachau »

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…

Is it allowed to use cursor in work places? does cursor uploads company code or leak any information?

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#293

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

234120987654 wrote: post #111

Wow, I did not expect to see such negativity in this thread. Most of them read to me like the "Dropbox is just an FTP"-narrative. Yes, you and your pride can do most of these things in 0.3ms and better, but so will 1 million more people now. You can do most of the things the author showed with your craftfully set-up IDE and magic tricks, but that's not the point. I don't want to spend a lifetime setting up these thin…

It's pretty clear that the utility of tools like Cursor depends on a lot of variables such as:

- the type of project you are working on (what are you writing)

- who are you writing for: is this meant to be bulletproof corporate code, a personal project, a throwaway prototype, etc

- the experience level of the developer

If your use case plays to the strength of the tool/technology, then obviously you will have a better experience than others trying to see if it can do things that it is not really capable of.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#294

Post by tomyedwab »

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 do think that is a real risk, yes. I don't want to use LLMs as a crutch to guard against having to ever learn anything new, or having to implement something myself. There is such a thing as productive struggle which is a core part of learning.

That said, I think everyone can relate to wasting an awful lot of time on things that are not "interesting" from the perspective of the project you are working on. For example, I can't count the number of hours I've spent trying to get something specific to work in webpack, and there is no payoff because today the fashionable tool is vite and tomorrow it'll be something else. I still want to know my code inside and out, but writing a deploy script for it should not be something I need to spend time on. If I had a junior dev working for me for pennies a day, I would absolutely delegate that stuff to them.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#295

Post by Writingdorky »

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…

[dead]

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#296

Post by cynicalpeace »

stocknoob wrote: post #235
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…

The naysayers used to bother me, but then I realized it’s no skin off my back if they don’t want to become familiar with a transformative technology. Stay with the old tools, people are getting excited for no reason at all, everyone is just pretending to be more productive! It reminds me of how blackberry users insisted physical keyboards were necessary and smartphone touchscreen users were deluded.

That's a great comparison.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#297

Post by cynicalpeace »

kachau wrote: post #292
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…

Is it allowed to use cursor in work places? does cursor uploads company code or leak any information?

Depends on your workplace. You can adjust some settings to fine tune what gets sent to Cursor/stored by them

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#298

Post by cynicalpeace »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #252
cynicalpeace wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> I'm able to out-deploy This is a very poor metric for your efficacy as a software engineer and if you optimize for this, you're gonna have a bad time long term.

You're right. MRR is a better metric. Gotten great MRR via Cursor too.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#299

Post by ramraj07 »

xlii wrote: post #89
ramraj07 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you clarify what your problem with FastAPI here is? Also did I understand correctly that you’re not very well versed with python in general but still decided to criticize the decisions the model and the author made in that language?

I have doubts about the design and on spot decision of using FastAPI. It’s kind of chicken and the egg problem. If author knows FastAPI then it’s great, but if not then should verify its applicability. It might not be the choice they’d make and need to verify both library and other solution if it’s not the fit. If I’d get suggestion like that I’d immediately go to documentation because I don’t know consequences. Expe…

FastAPI is a nobrainer choice of webserver backend for a python API server in 2024. If you’re not aware of that, then you really shouldn’t be commenting on this topic.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#300

Post by cynicalpeace »

zkry wrote: post #211
cynicalpeace wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Oh yeah, typo, I work with the Cursive IDE a lot. I've spent a good amount of time with Cursor. And I have no doubt that it provides a lot of utility. I also would agree that most good devs I know definitely adopt some form of LLM integration. I would even agree that a lot of cursive features will bleed into other editors, maybe being considered a necessity. I just haven't made the observation that most people have s…

> I just haven't made the observation that most people have switched to Cursor full-time

I noted that same thing in my initial comment.

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