Ask HN: Is using Cursor still coding?
When you use AI extensively i.e.: a combination of ChatGPT, Gemini 2.5 Pro and Claude (with Cursor or just "so") - to create something - is this still coding?
He wasn't asking in an accusatory way: most people in the class were learning to code for the first time, and something about how quickly code was appearing and the screen was jumping around and new functions were appearing made him think it really was capable of writing the code for me.
It comes back to me any time I see these discussions about if AI copilots are still coding. In fact, sometimes I think it's a wash in my productivity having to downgrade from Webstorm to VS Code to use Cursor.
Coding is the act of writing code. Prompting an AI until it poops out a half-working product is not writing code.
Having the editor/copilot generate some boilerplate or copying shit from Stack Overflow isn't coding either, but once you've done that you go back to coding, so there's a difference there. (Using SO is part of the job, yes, but so is attending meetings and I sure don't feel like I'm "coding" whilst sitting in standup. Any engineer who spends 100% of their time coding is lucky indeed. The point is, just because you're making software doesn't mean you're "coding".)
If your prompt looks more like "make me an app that orders pizza and sends me an email" then you are not coding.