> After almost every update, Cursor decides it now boots into the "Agent" view by default. You switch back to the IDE, restart the app - and you're back in the Agent view again. And the setting that controls this is moved and renamed every time
This got to me as well and I am off cursor. They kept changing the UI/UX with each release which was frustrating. But, kudos to them for pioneering this space.
I guess that the acquisition was a reason to switch to something else for a lot of people. Cursor failed to impress me enough for me to switch to it in the first place anyway, so I didn’t have to cancel it.
I still like to code a lot "by hand" but appreciate the AI based auto-complete/tab completion. What are folks using these days instead of Cursor in that respect? VSCode + Copilot?
I used to be a heavy shell and IDE user and now I ask my local AI to do the majority of computing tasks I used to do by hand.
Codex/similar harnesses allow me a digital workspace where I can organize both short-term and long-horizon tasks and build a "journal" of my computational history. I journal less and talk with my agents more. When I need to remember something, I can Ctrl+K in my harness or ask my agent to search previous conversations.
In Codex in particular, each workspace is unassuming, offering several panes with various functionality that I can customize to suit each particular task, and Codex remembers the layout for each conversation. You can structure some tasks to offer an IDE-like workspace, while others can just be a simple conversation pane. Cursor feels ham-fisted in comparison with non-coding tasks.
If I need to rename a few files, that's a job for my agent. If I need to convert something with ffmpeg, I'm never looking up reference again, because that's a job for my agent. If I need to change more than a word or two in a line of code, that's a job for my agent.
My job is to build a conceptual map of my work environment so that I can understand how each interface communicates without needing to know the exact implementation (and I still do quality/security review passes). I plan out work with the agent, design acceptance criteria and then monitor my agents as they work on various tasks across several projects. The agents' ability to design bespoke diagnostic programs, use a browser, etc. have allowed me to offload some amount of QA testing as well. I still have to test and review, but I don't have to write regressions by hand anymore or test for the more obvious UI/UX issues.
It's not a perfect system but from top-to-bottom, my computing experience has radically changed in a relatively short period of time. Putting this level of trust into cooperative agents was simply not possible a year ago, and not even six months ago. Harnesses have gotten better, and the last few rounds of cutting edge models in particular have really changed the landscape.
I'm sure I will grow to miss writing code by hand, some engineers have already expressed this to me, but I also have RSI to manage and honestly these agents have been a godsend. My wrists hurt less than ever after a long day of working, and yet I'm working on more things at once with a higher velocity without sacrificing architectural quality, security, robustness or the other big reasons why I previously could not trust agents.
Of course, like many others have expressed, this new paradigm is a lot more exhausting. That's also a good thing, because I have lifelong chronic insomnia. I'm still able to care for my mind and body more as I'm able to take more frequent short breaks to stretch, walk around or clear the cobwebs out of my brain as I know that progress is still being made. And I can still work from my phone while I walk.
I saw this change in cursor but i avoid ir 95% of the time by virtue of booting cursor by typing “cursor .” in the shell rather booting cursor from the icon and then opening the project/folder/whatever.
Also, i occasionally use cursor via its “agent” cli client or via emacs (using agent-shell and the acp)
It’s probably good for Cursor to lose customers like this. The old model of SDE writing code and harness helping with tab completion is just so unproductive that it might reflect badly on Cursor. It’s certainly not worth Cursors effort to keep it alive. But then I don’t get why harness-in-ide is particularly useful at this point. I use vscode and jetbrains, depending on language because I’m still working with the AI rather than vibe coding. A lot of folks would say I’m the Luddite.
I also cancelled Cursor this month after a few months of not using it at all other than to read code and make a few surgical edits. I can do that in any IDE, hell I can do that in Notepad. There are better products, the paradigm has shifted.
I wanted to write a blog post on just how annoying it was to try to cancel Cursor. I lost count of how many screens and hidden/inobvious elements I had to click through.
> After almost every update, Cursor decides it now boots into the "Agent" view by default. You switch back to the IDE, restart the app - and you're back in the Agent view again. And the setting that controls this is moved and renamed every time
This got to me as well and I am off cursor. They kept changing the UI/UX with each release which was frustrating. But, kudos to them for pioneering this space.
Cursor is a victim of its own success. Clearly the future is agents but the average user just wants them for a smarter tab completion.
I also cancelled my subscription since I’m not particularly sold that I need a middle man between me and OpenAI / Anthropic.
I guess that the acquisition was a reason to switch to something else for a lot of people. Cursor failed to impress me enough for me to switch to it in the first place anyway, so I didn’t have to cancel it.
I still like to code a lot "by hand" but appreciate the AI based auto-complete/tab completion. What are folks using these days instead of Cursor in that respect? VSCode + Copilot?
I used to be a heavy shell and IDE user and now I ask my local AI to do the majority of computing tasks I used to do by hand.
Codex/similar harnesses allow me a digital workspace where I can organize both short-term and long-horizon tasks and build a "journal" of my computational history. I journal less and talk with my agents more. When I need to remember something, I can Ctrl+K in my harness or ask my agent to search previous conversations.
In Codex in particular, each workspace is unassuming, offering several panes with various functionality that I can customize to suit each particular task, and Codex remembers the layout for each conversation. You can structure some tasks to offer an IDE-like workspace, while others can just be a simple conversation pane. Cursor feels ham-fisted in comparison with non-coding tasks.
If I need to rename a few files, that's a job for my agent. If I need to convert something with ffmpeg, I'm never looking up reference again, because that's a job for my agent. If I need to change more than a word or two in a line of code, that's a job for my agent.
My job is to build a conceptual map of my work environment so that I can understand how each interface communicates without needing to know the exact implementation (and I still do quality/security review passes). I plan out work with the agent, design acceptance criteria and then monitor my agents as they work on various tasks across several projects. The agents' ability to design bespoke diagnostic programs, use a browser, etc. have allowed me to offload some amount of QA testing as well. I still have to test and review, but I don't have to write regressions by hand anymore or test for the more obvious UI/UX issues.
It's not a perfect system but from top-to-bottom, my computing experience has radically changed in a relatively short period of time. Putting this level of trust into cooperative agents was simply not possible a year ago, and not even six months ago. Harnesses have gotten better, and the last few rounds of cutting edge models in particular have really changed the landscape.
I'm sure I will grow to miss writing code by hand, some engineers have already expressed this to me, but I also have RSI to manage and honestly these agents have been a godsend. My wrists hurt less than ever after a long day of working, and yet I'm working on more things at once with a higher velocity without sacrificing architectural quality, security, robustness or the other big reasons why I previously could not trust agents.
Of course, like many others have expressed, this new paradigm is a lot more exhausting. That's also a good thing, because I have lifelong chronic insomnia. I'm still able to care for my mind and body more as I'm able to take more frequent short breaks to stretch, walk around or clear the cobwebs out of my brain as I know that progress is still being made. And I can still work from my phone while I walk.
Devin Desktop fka Windsurf
I saw this change in cursor but i avoid ir 95% of the time by virtue of booting cursor by typing “cursor .” in the shell rather booting cursor from the icon and then opening the project/folder/whatever.
Also, i occasionally use cursor via its “agent” cli client or via emacs (using agent-shell and the acp)
It’s probably good for Cursor to lose customers like this. The old model of SDE writing code and harness helping with tab completion is just so unproductive that it might reflect badly on Cursor. It’s certainly not worth Cursors effort to keep it alive. But then I don’t get why harness-in-ide is particularly useful at this point. I use vscode and jetbrains, depending on language because I’m still working with the AI rather than vibe coding. A lot of folks would say I’m the Luddite.
I also cancelled Cursor this month after a few months of not using it at all other than to read code and make a few surgical edits. I can do that in any IDE, hell I can do that in Notepad. There are better products, the paradigm has shifted.
I wanted to write a blog post on just how annoying it was to try to cancel Cursor. I lost count of how many screens and hidden/inobvious elements I had to click through.
> how annoying it was to try to cancel Cursor
Add it to the enshittified software list.
>bug reports sit on their "feedback forum" for months
This, plus in my experience, the forum is the only way to get things resolved.
Bug reports to the account managers / architects (Enterprise contract) is not forwarded to the appropriate channels and never get addressed.