> Cursor has some sort of "concise mode" (archived) that they'll turn on when there is high load where the model will still be rated at the normal price but behaves in a useless manner. This mode will omit details, drop important findings, and corrupt the output that is being produced.
This is a real problem that I have experienced on and off. It's getting to the point where everyone on my team is actively looking for alternatives. Generally, I've found Cursor works correctly after business hours. But, it's increasingly giving absolutely useless responses during business hours.
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That being said, I agree with many of the author's observations. However, for me, it's not really a breaker. It's not much different than working with an intern or junior engineer. If you ask them to do too much all at once, they come up with bad solutions. Plus, they have a tendency to make "dumb" decisions.
For me, I've found solutions for nearly all of the listed issue. Much of it comes down to being diligent during code review (like you should). For example, the Typescript issue, I come back later to have it fix it.
Specs are the one that still baffles me. It's absolutely terrible at writing proper specs. In particular, it falls into a really bad cycle whenever there are errors. I don't have a solution for this one.
> Generally, I've found Cursor works correctly after business hours.
Interestingly the times I've experienced the most weirdness were during extremely not normal business hours (from the California perspective). For 3 nights in a row last week, I found myself coding at/after 2:30am during what were apparently periods of excessive load on Claude Sonnet. When asking Cursor to do things, it would fail, tell me about the high load, and encourage me to try again soon. Well, I just kept clicking the button over and over again, thinking it would eventually be able to handle the request properly, and otherwise continue presenting the error. Not the case!
Incorrect/hilarious things Cursor/Claude did at points during those nights:
- repeat the inquiry back to me in full, then do nothing at all after that
- confidently assert it had located the bug I was looking for, then direct me towards the entire codebase
- assert that it had done what I asked, and request that I approve the changes it wanted to make to my code, which were... nothing, none whatsoever
- (possibly the most hilarious) begin to answer questions in borderline leetspeak, randomly substituting numbers in place of letters in words, before eventually devolving into total gibberish
Mostly just annoying due to the wasted time, though it's possible the entertainment value negated it. I don't expect miracles from Cursor to begin with, nor do I give it wide latitude to change very much in my projects, so the risk of damage wasn't really any worse then than at any other time. Of course, I am not a team working against deadlines on critical projects, just a guy screwing around at 2:30am.
This is a real problem that I have experienced on and off. It's getting to the point where everyone on my team is actively looking for alternatives. Generally, I've found Cursor works correctly after business hours. But, it's increasingly giving absolutely useless responses during business hours.
-----
That being said, I agree with many of the author's observations. However, for me, it's not really a breaker. It's not much different than working with an intern or junior engineer. If you ask them to do too much all at once, they come up with bad solutions. Plus, they have a tendency to make "dumb" decisions.
For me, I've found solutions for nearly all of the listed issue. Much of it comes down to being diligent during code review (like you should). For example, the Typescript issue, I come back later to have it fix it.
Specs are the one that still baffles me. It's absolutely terrible at writing proper specs. In particular, it falls into a really bad cycle whenever there are errors. I don't have a solution for this one.