Figure 1
A game an 8-year old has built with Cursor
Note. Image taken from To, M. [@MengTo]. (2024, September 1). My 8yo son built a Three.js site with zero coding experience. He used Claude AI and let Cursor apply all the code for him… [Post]. X. https://x.com/MengTo/status/1830122851028123911
Hello everyone,
As briefly touched upon by Prof. Li, there is an AI/IDE that should not be overlooked by software engineers and curious individuals alike, namely cursor.sh. Cursor is an integrated development environment (IDE) that employs Large Language Models (LLMs) to write code for you, taking into account the whole context of your project.
I understand the term IDE might already scare you into not reading further but rest assured, it is just a place where you can manage a folder with your code or software in it. Being an autodidactic programmer myself, I cannot overstate how revolutionary this technology is and will be in the coming years. I use cursor.sh on a daily basis for programming tasks and are rarely disappointed with its result and I am not alone. Andrej Karpathy, former director of AI at tesla and co-founder of OpenAI stated that he mainly uses natural language to code now, employing Cursor (2024) , after he already jokingly stated that ‘The hottest new programming language is English” in 2023 (Karpathy, 2023). It is clear that this ‘Copilot approach’ is altering software engineering and it is expected to reduce the coding-related tasks by 33-36% (Pandey et al., 2024).
As stated in my introduction, Cursor is not only appealing to software engineers. It has enabled non-programmers to build applications that they never held for possible. Examples are 8-year olds building 3d games (To, 2024), non-coders building Real Estate SaaS (Potter, 2024). The opportunities of building are plentiful and I am sure you as an individual can come up with a software application that you will enjoy building or that will ease your life. Cursor can be used with any programming language but I would recommend people to build in languages that they are already familiar with or require a less steep learning curve (e..g, python, javascript).
Thus, I challenge you to download cursor at cursor.sh, watch some videos on how to use it as a (non)-programmer, build a cool application, and share it in the comment section. This can all be done within 2 hours. Don’t hesitate to comment if you have any question about the software or how to apply it. I will be happy to help you!
References:
- Karpathy, A. [@karpathy]. (2023, January 21). The hottest new programming language is English [Tweet]. X. https://x.com/karpathy/status/1617979122625712128
- Karpathy, A. [@karpathy]. (2024, August 24). Programming is changing so fast… I’m trying VS Code Cursor + Sonnet 3.5 instead of GitHub Copilot again and I think it’s now a net win… [Tweet]. X. https://x.com/karpathy/status/1827143768459637073
- Pandey, R., Singh, P., Wei, R., & Shankar, S. (2024, June 25). Transforming Software Development: Evaluating the efficiency and challenges of GitHub Copilot in Real-World projects. arXiv.org. https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.17910
- Potter, J. [@jamespotterdev]. (2024, September 23). My non-coder friend is coding with Cursor. He works as a copywriter/marketer. The goal is to build a real estate intelligence SaaS… [Post]. X. https://x.com/jamespotterdev/status/1838022378443678163
- To, M. [@MengTo]. (2024, September 1). My 8yo son built a Three.js site with zero coding experience. He used Claude AI and let Cursor apply all the code for him… [Post]. X. https://x.com/MengTo/status/1830122851028123911
