What a lot of people don’t mention here is the choice of an AI model.
The key word in the OP post is “Claude”. Anthropic has 2 amazing AI models (Sonnet, Opus), however they’re just a part of a much bigger picture.
When using AI for programming, you’re essentially interacting with AI models. The quality of output you get really depends on the model at the end of the day.
Claude Code is optimized for models from Anthropic. You also have model-agnostic agents like Cursor and Kilo Code (disclaimer: I work at Kilo) where you can easily switch up models and see which one works the best for you converting an old jQuery + Django project into SvelteKit.
This area is moving at a crazy rate. Just the last 2 weeks alone, there were 3 main AI model versions released (first Gemini 3, then Opus 4.5, then GPT-5.2). I wrote a piece comparing their performance across 3 coding tasks [1]
So my advice is to also experiment a lot with the models because the quality can vary wildly depending on your stack.
The entire workflow for "AI coding agents" boils down to:
1. You write a prompt
2. The agent wraps it in a system prompt and sends it to the LLM
3. The LLM sends back a response
4. The agent performs specific actions based on that response (editing files, creating new ones, etc.)
I don't see why anyone would ditch their current (non-AI) IDE for Cursor just to get this functionality (especially if you're getting hit with a monthly subscription fee on top of it.)
P.S. I maintain a VS Code extension that does the 4 steps above as a baseline[1]
There's definitely a negative sentiment around "vibe coding" on HN. I remember a few days ago seeing a story [1] on the home page which immediately got downvoted/flagged.
The key word in the OP post is “Claude”. Anthropic has 2 amazing AI models (Sonnet, Opus), however they’re just a part of a much bigger picture.
When using AI for programming, you’re essentially interacting with AI models. The quality of output you get really depends on the model at the end of the day. Claude Code is optimized for models from Anthropic. You also have model-agnostic agents like Cursor and Kilo Code (disclaimer: I work at Kilo) where you can easily switch up models and see which one works the best for you converting an old jQuery + Django project into SvelteKit.
This area is moving at a crazy rate. Just the last 2 weeks alone, there were 3 main AI model versions released (first Gemini 3, then Opus 4.5, then GPT-5.2). I wrote a piece comparing their performance across 3 coding tasks [1]
So my advice is to also experiment a lot with the models because the quality can vary wildly depending on your stack.
[1] https://blog.kilo.ai/p/we-tested-gpt-52pro-vs-opus-45-vs