Software Engineering :: Pair Programming :: AI Assistant :: Cursor :: About :: You are using Cursor AI incorrectly...
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I'm hesitant to give this advice away for free, but I'm gonna push past it and share it anyway. You're using Cursor incorrectly.
Over the last few weeks I've been doing /zooms with software engineers - from entry level, to staff level and all the way up to principal level.
Here's what I've seen:
- Using Cursor as a replacement for Google Search.
- Under specification of prompts, not knowing how to drive outcomes and using low-level thinking of "implement XYZ please".
- Treating Cursor as if it is an IDE, instead of it being an autonomous agent.
- Blissful unawareness to the concept that you can program LLM outcomes.
- Unnecessary usage of pleasantries ("please" and "can you") with it as if it was a human. If it fucks up, swear at it - go all caps and call it a clown. It soothes the soul.
Okay, well that last point - it doesn't really change the outcome of Cursor so let's focus on the other points....
Cursor has a pretty powerful feature called Cursor Rules and it's a killer feature that is being slept on/is misunderstood. A quick scour of GitHub for implementations and scouting the community forums reveals that people are using them incorrectly - they all roughly look like this...