Writing tests with an AI assistant removes most of the friction that causes developers to skip or defer testing. Tests are repetitive, edge-case enumeration is tedious, and the boilerplate for mocks and fixtures looks nearly identical across hundreds of test files. AI handles all of this well. The challenge is knowing how to direct it … Read more
Building a full application with an AI coding assistant is a different experience from using AI for isolated tasks. The challenge is not getting the AI to write code — it will do that readily — but keeping the architecture coherent, the codebase understandable, and the quality high across a multi-session project that grows in … Read more
GitHub Copilot Workspace is GitHub’s answer to the agentic coding tools pioneered by Cursor and Windsurf — a feature that lets you describe a task in natural language and have Copilot plan, implement, and iterate on code changes across an entire repository. What distinguishes it from standalone AI IDEs is where it lives: directly inside … Read more
Cursor supports local models through Ollama, letting you run AI-assisted coding entirely on your own hardware — no API keys, no usage costs, no data leaving your machine. The quality is lower than frontier cloud models, but for privacy-sensitive codebases, offline work, or developers who run many short coding sessions throughout the day, local models … Read more
Cursor Composer is the agentic multi-file editing mode inside Cursor that transforms a simple code request into a sustained, multi-step coding session. Where a regular Cursor chat generates code for you to paste in, Composer reads your files, makes edits directly across multiple files, runs terminal commands, observes the output, and iterates — all within … Read more
Running Aider with a local LLM means you get AI-assisted coding with no API costs, no data leaving your machine, and no dependence on third-party services. The tradeoff is quality — local models are not yet as capable as frontier cloud models for complex coding tasks. But for the right use cases, the combination of … Read more
Aider is an open-source AI coding assistant that runs in the terminal, giving you access to powerful AI-assisted coding without switching to a new IDE or paying for a proprietary tool. It connects to your existing code editor and git repository, reads the files you specify, and makes changes based on natural language instructions. Aider … Read more
Windsurf is an AI-native code editor from Codeium, built on VS Code’s foundation and designed around deep AI integration from the ground up. Released in November 2024, it quickly became one of the main alternatives to Cursor for developers who want an AI-first IDE rather than an AI extension bolted onto an existing editor. This … Read more
Vibe coding — letting AI handle the bulk of implementation while you focus on direction and outcomes — works best when you apply deliberate practices around it. Karpathy’s original description made it sound effortless, and for throwaway scripts it often is. But for anything you need to maintain, share, or scale, the difference between effective … Read more
Using an LLM to review code is one of the most immediately practical applications of AI in software development. It is faster than waiting for a human reviewer, available at any time, and capable of catching a useful class of issues — logic errors, missing edge cases, security anti-patterns, and style inconsistencies — before code … Read more
