How I write code using Cursor • Hacker News Board

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#61

Post by Sateeshm » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 7:13 AM UTC

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…

Completely agree. I find it fails miserably at business logic, which is where we spend most of our time on. But does great at generic stuff, which is already trivial to find on stack overflow.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#62

Post by manmal » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 7:15 AM UTC

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.

Do they really solve the hard problems though? For me, the LLMs solve the low level problems. Usually I need to figure out an algorithm, which is the actual problem, and finally give some pseudo code to the LLM and surrounding code so it can generate a solution that looks idiomatic.

In some cases, LLMs act as a stackoverflow replacement for me, like „sort this with bubble sort, by property X“. I’d also ask it to write some test cases around that. I won’t import a bubble sort library just for this, but I also don’t want to spend any more time than necessary, implementing this for the nth time.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#63

Post by OtomotO » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 7:16 AM UTC

"For example, suppose I have a block of code with variable names in under_score notation that I want to convert to camelCase."

Oh my, oh my... How have I done this all these years before "AI" was a th- hype?

I did it without wasting even a fraction of the CO2 needed for these toys.

"AI" has some usecases, granted. But selling it as the holy grail and again sh•tting on the environment is getting more and more ridiculous by the day.

Humanity, even the smarter part, truly deserves what is coming.

Apes on a space rock

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#64

Post by Hedepig » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 7:17 AM UTC

Sateeshm wrote: post #61

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…

Completely agree. I find it fails miserably at business logic, which is where we spend most of our time on. But does great at generic stuff, which is already trivial to find on stack overflow.

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

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#65

Post by oliver_jack » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 7:19 AM UTC

[dead]

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#66

Post by ciconia » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 7:19 AM UTC

Watching the videos in the article, the constantly changing suggested completions seem really distracting.

Personally, I find this kind of workflow totally counter-productive. My own programming workflow is ~90% mental work / doing sketches with pen & paper, and ~10% writing the code. When I do sit down to write the code, I know already what I want to write, don't need suggestions.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#67

Post by swang » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 7:21 AM UTC

Trying to remember: Was cursor the one that took yc money and basically reskinned some open source project, the project that was stolen, or neither..?

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#68

Post by viraptor » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 7:23 AM UTC

delackner wrote: post #57

For me, all these tools suffer from the same basic question, how can I put proprietary private source into a tool notorious for siphoning up and copying everything you say to it?

Business tier: "Enforce privacy mode org-wide".

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#69

Post by NitpickLawyer » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 7:24 AM UTC

Giorgi wrote: post #41

That article reads just like half-a--ed chatgpt prompt designed to shill Cursor because it became irrelevant after introduction of Canvas tool.

> to shill Cursor because it became irrelevant after introduction of Canvas tool.

Haha, no. A web interface won't make a full-fledged IDE irrelevant. Canvas is really cool for a quick session in the browser, when travelling, while in bed, on a plane, etc. It's neat and works. But it's nowhere near the IDE experience.

Cursor is still a full IDE in the background, with all the bells and whistles that come with it. So if you're working on anything more complicated than one-off scripts, you'll still benefit a lot from having it, over a web interface.

Re: How I write code using Cursor

#70

Post by viraptor » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 7:29 AM UTC

pama wrote: post #18

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?

Not in the same way. Places like Cursor and Continue have their own tuned and minimal models which can work really fast. In an interview, Cursor people also mentioned some extra magic they do like streaming the changes/context in as you type and potentially doing some speculative processing before you even type things. You would need to write lots of new code which, as far as I understand, doesn't exist in the open source world at this point. And neither do the appropriate models.

I'm sure we'll get there, but I haven't seen anything even close available.