I’ve used Claude and Chad Jupiter before and found them helpful for specific tasks:
- Identifying an algorithm I can’t recall the name of.
- Trying to train a model without deep machine learning knowledge; they help create a learning path, even if not optimal.
However, I think they are inefficient overall because reviewing their generated code often takes more brain power than writing my own.
Having seen Cursor mentioned as top-tier, I tried the free version, and it turned out to be quite disappointing.
For example, I prompted:
# I need some Elixir code that aligns characters or groups of characters in pairs of strings. Here’s an example:
# Input:
# ```
# abc,LlmNN
# ccb,NNNNm
# ac,LlNN
# bab,mim
# ```
# Output:
# ```
# a b c,Ll m NN
# c c b,NN NN m
# a c,Ll NN
# b a b,m i m
# ```
I didn’t craft the perfect prompt, so that may be an issue, but in comparison:
- Claude gave runnable code but didn’t solve my request.
- Chad Jupiter attempted but faltered.
- Cursor? It didn’t seem to grasp the task at all.
It produced a function that merely read from a file and split it by new lines—not even aligned with my request. Is this the standard for Cursor, or am I missing something?
Here’s Claude’s flawed code output:
defmodule CharacterAligner do
... // long code here
end
# Example usage
input = """
abc,LlmNN
ccb,NNNNm
ac,LlNN
bab,mim
"""
result = CharacterAligner.process(input)
IO.puts(result)
The returned output was:
a L b l c m
c N c N b N
a L c l
b m a i b m
I expected:
a b c,Ll m NN
c c b,NN NN m
a c,Ll NN
b a b,m i m
What gives?