Yeah, exactly. For everyone who might not know, the chat apps add lots of complex system prompting to handle and shape personality, tone, general usability, etc. IDE's also do this (with Claude Code being one of the ones that are closest to "bare" model that you can get) but at they are at least guiding it's behavior to be really good at coding tasks. Another reason is using the Agent feature that IDE's have had for a few months now which gives it the ability to search/read/edit files across your codebase. You may not like the idea of this and it feels like losing control, but it's the future. After months of using it I've learned how to get it to do what I want but I think a lot of people who try it once and stop get frustrated that it does something dumb and just assume it's not good. That's a practice and skill problem not a model problem.
This has been my experience. It has been something I’ve had to settle into. After some reps, it is becoming more difficult to imagine going back to regular old non-assisted coding sessions that aren’t purely for hobby.
Your model rankings are spot on. I’m hesitant to make the jump to top tier premium models as daily drivers, so I hang out with sonnet 4 and/or Gemini 2.5 pro for most of the day (max mode in Cursor). I don’t want to get used to premium quality coming that easy, for some reason. I completely align with the concise, thoughtful code being worth it though. I’m having to do that myself using tier 2 models. I still use o3 periodically for getting clarity of thought or troubleshooting gnarly bugs that Claude gets caught looping on.
How would you compare Cursor to Claude Code? I’m yet to try the latter.
I have not used them but I feel like there are tools like Replit, Lovable, etc that are for that audience. I totally agree IDE's are intimidating for non-technical people though. Claude Code is pretty cool in that way where it's one command to install and pretty easy to get started with.
An important caveat here is yes, for coding. Apps are fine for coming up with one-liners, or doing other research. I haven't found the quality of IDE based code to be significantly better than what ChatGPT would suggest, but it's very useful to ask questions when the model has access to both the code and can prompt you to run tests which rely on local data (or even attached hardware). I really don't trust YOLO mode so I manually approve terminal calls.
My impression (with Cursor) is that you need to practice some sort of LLM-first design to get the best out of it. Either vibe code your way from the start, or be brutal about limiting what changes the agent can make without your approval. It does force you to be very atomic about your requests, which isn't a bad thing, but writing a robust spec for the prompt is often slower than writing the code by hand and asking for a refactor. As soon as kipple, for lack of a better word, sneaks into the code, it's a reinforcing signal to the agent that it can add more.
It's definitely worth paying the $20 and playing with a few different clients. The rabbit hole is pretty deep and there's still a ton of prompt engineering suggestions from the community. It encourages a lot of creative guardrails, like using pre-commit to provide negative feedback when the model does something silly like try to write a 200 word commit message. I haven't tried JetBrains' agent yet (Junie), but that seems like it would be a good one to explore as well since it presumably integrates directly with the tooling.
I think this is debatable. But I've used Cursor and various extensions for VS Code. They're all fine (but cursor can fuck all the way off for stealing the `code` shell integration from VS Code) but you don't _need_ an IDE as Claude Code has shown us (currently my primary method of vibe coding).
It's mostly about the cost though. Things are far more affordable in the the various apps/subscriptions. Token-priced API's can get very expensive very quickly.
I used Cursor well over a year ago. It gave me a headache. It was very immature. Used cursor more recently: the headache intensity increased. It's not cursor it is the senseless loops hoping for the LLM to spit out something somewhat correct. Revisiting the prompt. Trying to become an elite in language protocols because we need that machine to understand us.
Leaving aside the headache, its side effects. It isn't clear we haven't already maxed out on the productivity tools efficiency. Auto complete. Indexed and searchable doc a second screen rather than having to turn the pages of some reference book. Etc etc.
I'm convinced at this stage that we've already started to trade too far. So far beyond the optimal balance that these aren't diminishing returns. It is absolute diminishing.
Engineers need to spend more time thinking.
I'm convinced that engineers, if they were to chose, would throw this thing out and make space for more drawing boards, would use a 5 minute Solitaire break every 1h. Or take a walk.
For some reason the constant pressure to go faster eventually makes its mark.
It feels right to see thousands of lines of code written up by this thing. It feels aligned with the inadequate way we've been measured.
Anyway. It can get expensive and this is by design.
> We are trading tokens and mental health for time?
I have bipolar disorder. This makes programming incredibly difficult for me at times. Almost all the recent improvements to code generation tooling have been a tremendous boon for me. Coding is now no longer this test of how frustrated I can get over the most trivial of tasks. I just ask for what I want precisely and treat responses like a GitHub PR where mistakes may occur. In general (and for the trivial tasks I'm describing) Claude Code will generate correct, good code (I inform it very precisely of the style I want, and tell it to use linters/type-checkers/formatters after making changes) on the first attempt. No corrections needed.
tl;dr - It's been nothing but a boon for this particular mentally ill person.
If your handicap make coding difficult perhaps another profession would suit you better.
Now if Ai assistance allow you to perform well then that is a different story and I take my advice back of course.
There is a lot to say, positive things about how LLMs enables people to perform at tasks that would be impossible for them. Whether due to handicaps or simply lacking the abilities, or opportunity to train.
My comment was on the impact on "healthy" individuals who remain the majority of the population. And I only spoke for myself, I have no clue maybe it is just me or due to how I use the thing. Thanks for sharing your experience though, I had not considered what might be a concern for the majority with this might very well be an enabler.
I am really struggling with this. I tried Cline with both OpenAI and Claude to very weird results. Often burning through credits to get no where or just running out of context. I just got Cursor for a try so can't say anything on that yet.
There is skill to it but that's certainly not the only relevant variable involved. Other important factors are:
Language: Syntax errors rise, and a common form is the syntax of a more common language bleeding through.
Domain: Less so than what humans deem complex, quality is more strongly controlled by how much code and documentation there is for a domain. Interesting is that if in a less common subdomain, it will often revert to a more common approach (for example working on shaders for a game that takes place in a cylinder geometry requires a lot more hand-holding than on a plane). It's usually not that they can't do it, but that they require much more involved prompting to get the context appropriately set up and then managing drifting to default, more common patterns. Related is decisions with long term consequences. LLMs are pretty weak at this. In humans this one comes with experience, so it's rare and an instance of low coverage.
Dates: Related is reverting to obsolete API patterns.
Complexity: While not as dominant as domain coverage, complexity does play a role. With likelihood of error rising with complexity.
This means if you're at the intersection of multiple of these (such as a low coverage problem in a functional language), agent mode will likely be too much of a waste for you. But interactive mode can still be highly productive.
