Tuesday, April 29, 2025

The Digital Press

All the Bits Fit to Print

Ruby Web Development Artificial Intelligence Urban Planning Astronomy

AI Coding Tools Like Cursor, Windsurf Feel Like Slot Machines

Comparing AI-assisted coding tools Cursor and Windsurf in VS Code environments

From Hacker News Original Article Hacker News Discussion

A developer shares their mixed experience using AI-powered coding tools Cursor and Windsurf, describing frequent switching between them like playing slot machines. Despite frustrations with reliability, the ease of trying different VS Code forks encourages exploration.

Why it matters: Easy switching lowers barriers to testing AI coding tools but challenges user loyalty without unique features or stability.

The big picture: AI IDEs built on VS Code compete fiercely, needing strong differentiation ("moats") to retain users long-term.

Stunning stat: The author reports about 90% of their code is now AI-generated from multiple LLM sources like Claude and OpenAI.

Commenters say: Users resonate with the "slot machine" analogy, emphasizing both excitement over AI productivity and frustration with inconsistent output.