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Hello, I am Yufei, nice to meet you through writing..Thank you for reading, and I look forward to our next encounter.
A new year has begun, and I would like to share a tutorial about Windsurf. Windsurf is an IDE based on VSCode developed by the Codeium team, and its overall interface is similar to Cursor, which is why many people compare the two.
In simple terms, based on my experience and that of my group friends, Windsurf is more suitable for newcomers without programming backgrounds to quickly learn and develop applications, while Cursor has more features and is relatively smoother to use. Both are AI programming tools, and they both use the Claude 3.5 model at their core, so the differences won’t be significant; you can choose according to your preferences.
Today, I will share some basic knowledge about Windsurf.
You can download this application directly from the official site, which currently supports Windows, Mac, and Linux versions.
Official website: https://codeium.com/windsurf
The two core features of Windsurf include flows, which is a workflow. In simple terms, this feature combines a complex agent and copilot, capable of generating commands while providing an execution plan, and then calling the command line to offer different decisions. This is quite similar to the new agent feature introduced by Cursor, but since Windsurf was released earlier, the experience is somewhat better.
The second feature is Cascade, which translates to waterfall. It essentially integrates codebase understanding, tool application, and the commands we execute into a unified tab. This is also the only chat method in Windsurf, making it simpler, and its functionality is akin to a combination of Cursor’s Chat and Composer.
After installation, the entire interface is exactly the same as Cursor, as both are based on VS Code’s secondary development. You can also install the Chinese plugin to switch the language to Chinese.
Find the plugin option indicated by the red box on the left, then enter “Chinese” in the search box, locate the small globe in the blue box, install it, and restart the interface.
After restarting, we can create a new project, and we can see that a dialog box will appear on the right by default, allowing us to directly interact with it to complete project development, with overall code output being quite smooth.
In the output content, there will be parts for executing commands, such as clicking on the highlighted area to directly execute the written code. However, since my code contains some Chinese, Windsurf still has issues with garbled text, indicating that Chinese support still has some minor problems.
The advantage of Windsurf is that its code is generated while being displayed. In contrast, Cursor requires you to manually apply it before it can actually be written to the local disk. This is why Windsurf is much faster than Cursor, as it is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) tool. However, the downside is obvious; if the code is modified incorrectly, restoring it will take some time.
The features in the dialog box below are relatively limited, and you can use the advanced models Claude 3.5 and GPT-4o, as well as your base model. The base model is available for all versions but has weaker overall functionality. Since Windsurf integrates many features with its Cascade, first-time users switching from Cursor to Windsurf may not adapt well.
Finally, regarding pricing, at $15, it is $5 cheaper than Cursor. Those interested can check on Taobao or Xianyu; buying one month is sufficient. For infrequent users, a free account is still available, and multiple accounts can be registered for use.
Overall, Windsurf’s experience shows that it still lacks some functionality, likely due to the overall workflow design and scheduling not being sufficiently refined. With continuous updates and iterations, it should have great potential. However, if the only difference is a $5 reduction, it is not enough to surpass Cursor. I look forward to further developments and in-depth experiences.
Please continue learning.
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