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Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

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Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#51

Post by bhl »

antirez wrote: post #15

So because they need to have a better business model, they will try to move users to weaker models compared to the best available? This "AI inside the editor" thing makes every day less sense in many dimensions: it makes you not really capable of escaping the accept, accept, accept trap. It makes the design interaction with the LLM too much about code and too little about the design itself. And you can't do what many…

Slightly weaker, but cheaper models mostly good for Windsurf only. As a developer, I would rather have stronger models I can throw more money at.

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#52

Post by dghlsakjg »

keeganpoppen wrote: post #47
resters wrote: post #46

A few points that are getting overlooked: - OpenAI is buying WindSurf and probably did diligence on these models before it decided to invest. - WindSurf may have collected valuable data from it users that is helpful in training a coding-focused AI model. The data would give a 6 month lead to OpenAI which is probably worth the $3B. - Even if Windsurf's frontier models are not better than other models for coding, if th…

this is clearly the right take… it’s fun to semi-dunk on “how on earth is that the valuation”, but this is one of those rare cases where the tech and platform are genuinely more valuable in the hands of the acquirer than they ever could be in the hands of the acquiree. because i think windsurf has executed as well as one possibly could in the space, but openai is the SOTA model king, and i don’t see that changing any…

Minor nit: OpenAI is in a three way tie for SOTA models with Google and Anthropic. They are the king of marketing attention, studio Ghibli imitation, and consumer subscriptions, though.

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#53

Post by tintor »

aitchnyu wrote: post #41
aquir wrote: post #14

It's a shame that my development work needs a specific VSCode extension (domain specific language for ERP systems) so my options are VSCode+Copilot or Cursor.

Aider runs in your terminal and you can make comments against your code in any editor and it will execute your requests. It can use any model. CLine, mentioned in sibling comment is is same space.

Aider wastes tokens like crazy.

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#54

Post by vunderba »

antirez wrote: post #15

So because they need to have a better business model, they will try to move users to weaker models compared to the best available? This "AI inside the editor" thing makes every day less sense in many dimensions: it makes you not really capable of escaping the accept, accept, accept trap. It makes the design interaction with the LLM too much about code and too little about the design itself. And you can't do what many…

> they will try to move users to weaker models compared to the best available

> you can't do what many of us do: have three subscriptions and use each for its best

I don't think has anything to do with whether or not AI is in the editor so much as it is the difference between a subscription (Cursor) vs. a BYOK approach (VS Codium + Cline, Zed, etc). Most BYOK plug-ins will let you set up multiple profiles against various providers so that you can choose the most optimal LLM for the given problem you're trying to solve.

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#56

Post by phillipcarter »

infecto wrote: post #48
phillipcarter wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that the UX favors accepting code changes as the primary action, rather than using the chat interface as an ideation tool. It's quite valid, because as a user of all these tools, Winsurf and Cursor very much do try to make you slap the Accept button uncritically!

Does it though? I use the chat option quite a bit in the tools. The only UX that favors accept pattern is tab which makes sense.

It does. Defaults matter, and the defaults for these tools are agent mode with code changes meant to be accepted, rather than forcing you to read the code and manually apply those changes.

Note: I'm not saying that's a bad thing! It's significantly more convenient for many use cases, so I can see why it's a default. But the incentive being created is to accept first, analyze later.

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#58

Post by resters »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #50
resters wrote: post #46

A few points that are getting overlooked: - OpenAI is buying WindSurf and probably did diligence on these models before it decided to invest. - WindSurf may have collected valuable data from it users that is helpful in training a coding-focused AI model. The data would give a 6 month lead to OpenAI which is probably worth the $3B. - Even if Windsurf's frontier models are not better than other models for coding, if th…

Thanks - this does help contextualize the $3B acquisition. When the story first broke all they seemed to be paying for was a coding agent (of which there are sooo many out there) and the large windsurf user base (but with no moat). So a lot of us were rather skeptical. The valuation is still kinda insane, I think, but Windsurf’s ability to train a frontier model - and with a much smaller team than the big AI shops -…

> Thanks - this does help contextualize the $3B acquisition.

Agreed. My initial reaction to the $3B acquisition was similar to yours. Seeing this announcement made me rethink it a bit.

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#59

Post by throwaway314155 »

lemming wrote: post #27
blixt wrote: post #8

> Enabled from the insight from our heavily-used Windsurf Editor, we got to work building a completely new data model (the shared timeline) and a training recipe that encapsulates incomplete states, long-running tasks, and multiple surfaces. This data is very valuable if you're trying to create fully automated SWEs, while most foundation model providers have probably been scraping together second hand data to simulat…

The company that is best placed to collect tons of high quality data of this type is undoubtedly Google. They’ve had publications talking about how they capture data from their in house SWE tools and use it to improve their tooling.

This summarizes Google's approach to software engineering well; just pretend the outside world doesn't exist and the "Google way" is the only way.

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#60

Post by bicepjai »

aquir wrote: post #14

It's a shame that my development work needs a specific VSCode extension (domain specific language for ERP systems) so my options are VSCode+Copilot or Cursor.

My favorite tools are cline and roo. My experience says cline eats tokens like crazy and roo eats less. I don’t try Aider since I do like to watch the mesmerizing diffs (fire verification) :)
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