Cursor is great BUT Aider is the OG AI Coding King (Mermaid Diagram AI Agent)

[@lydedreamoz]

At least someone using aider correctly on a real codebase! Thank you for your work

[@parkerrex]

[@chriscotton4207]

As a person just diving into code cursor is definitely easier to understand. I'm also learning very rapidly because it explains what it's doing. Maybe when I learn enough I can go to aider 😂

[@moge___w]

Now using aider as my main tool for everyday work. Even more satisfying with the new /architect mode. Learn to combine the different modes to get on a very efficient workflow. Very useful to use one or more convention files added as /read-only, and even give it context with a file describing the scope of the current task, if it consists of many subtasks. As Paul suggests, always one step at a time, guiding aider in the right direction to achieve the desired goal. Also, very useful to give it context by docstrings, etc., that aider itself had previously generated, and to create a PR with a detailed body in a single gh command that aider suggests and executes.

[@randomizedcake]

Exactly what I was thinking. I'm leaning more and more towards aider and shell-gpt for AI assistance

[@parkerrex]

Dude! I’ve been dying for a workflow like this. I’ve used Cursor since it launched and wrestled with tons of setups. Recently discovered Aider, and I’m so glad I found your channel. Great work and awesome content from someone building real projects-not just throwaway todo apps!

[@and1play5]

yeah his flows are my archetype

[@fstech.digital]

I remember that you sir was the first one to share about cursor. So, I feel very comfortable saying that you are far ahead of 90% of other KZbinrs about AI. Continue this incredible work and please launch a course or mentorship as soon as possible, I will certainly do it.

[@indydevdan]

Thank you @fstech.digital, it means a lot to hear that from a long-time viewer. We've been pushing the potential of AI coding since the beginning, and it's amazing to have that called out. I’m actively working on creating the best AI Coding Course for engineers who are serious about shipping high quality code - fast. Stay tuned, super stoked to share more with you soon.

[@quercus3290]

I knew next to nothing about coding, but now thanks to LLM's im carrying out silhouette analysis for k-mean clusters on very large datasets. Good things.

[@mrd6869]

AI is an amplifier for sure.

[@MMABeijing]

What do u mean by silhouette analysis?

[@quercus3290]

@@MMABeijing "Silhouette analysis can be used to study the separation distance between the resulting clusters. The silhouette plot displays a measure of how close each point in one cluster is to points in the neighboring clusters and thus provides a way to assess parameters like number of clusters visually"

[@MMABeijing]

@@quercus3290 thank you. I can't say I understand, but I appreciate you taking the time to explain

[@deltagamma1442]

@@quercus3290 What use is it to visualise the distance? Is it compared to better performing models or is there an ideal standard?

[@ericxu9943]

You can make the most of VSCode’s Git Diff View to check the code changes made by Aider, instead of trying to figure out confusing code in the command line. So, I recommend using Aider and Cursor together.

[@ShamusMac]

Or you can not install bloatware and see the diff in right-click > TortoiseGit or TortoiseSVN > Diff

[@chrisnieder5407]

Have you tried Claude-dev, similar to Aider but for VSCode IDE? Curious to hear your thoughts, if you use that IDE

[@magicandr]

I like Claude-dev a lot but it eats up tokens like crazy.

[@indydevdan]

Still playing with Claude-dev, can't say where I place it yet. Likely 3rd place for legit 100+ file production codebases but we'll see. Stay tuned.

[@BizInNews]

I'm looking forward to seeing Aider working together with Ada 😉

[@efrainpineda664]

Me too. Already forked ADA :)

[@TreeLuvBurdpu]

I'm using Aider mostly now, and i like having it make sequence diagrams, for charts, and C4 diagrams, and then reviewing those, and then /ask if the code represents the diagrams.

[@BizInNews]

👍

[@micknamens8659]

How do you make high-level sequence diagrams spanning multiple files and micro-services that communicate via REST and rabbitmq?

[@TreeLuvBurdpu]

@@micknamens8659 multiple diagrams. One sequence diagram could show each file as an actor, for the one focusing on the files. Create another diagram that has each service as an actor, for a diagram that focuses on the interactions between services. Use C4 for structured layers for drilling down.

[@geofftsjy]

what about using your agentic workflows to call scripted aider? I've had some good success with scripting aider for some use cases and I was thinking of super charging it with the predictable output agents you talk about. My use case was for converting a configuration as data to a system that was getting deprecated to pydantic python models to implement the same system while using the same config structure. I was able to get scripted aider to follow the example of the first conversion that I did and do it for the dozens of remaining once. It ran for a while. Probably even a few hours. But I came back to my desk to find all of the models made to the like 80ish percent that I expected them to be. HUGE time saver. And that was with sloppy scripting.

[@indydevdan]

I've been sitting on this idea for awhile. You're hitting on pure gold.

[@geofftsjy]

@@indydevdan I submitted an issue to the aider project -- number 1355. About giving it the ability to do asks with structured response. I'd love to get your thoughts on it. You can't send a URL in a comment, though =( Feature Request: Support for Structured Questions and Responses in Scripted Aider Using Pydantic Models 1355

[@424kchun424]

Could you compare claude dev with aider? Thank you!

[@gerryscat]

I seemed to have zoned out at the beginning, your using Mermaid to build some diagrams, but what has that to do with your python code? It is some kind of wrapper for a Mermaid API or something?

[@echambers1112]

You know, if you open Aider in a terminal window in vscode it is *almost* like Cursor :)

[@macmanuelodumeru3708]

Open it in neovim and is also like cursor too haha

[@B3L13V3R]

Bro! So glad I checked out the channel. I neeeeeded better Mermaid automation. Thank you!

[@industrialvectors]

Crazy to think that this type of query heavy programming on a tiny codebase can easily cost $4 per day per dev with only 100 prompts. I wonder how much costs scale with project sizes. Also wondering how big of a codebase can be retained in context, unless it performs multiple queries across multiple embeds.

[@phloxevl0]

This gets expensive really quick though, right? Even a single "ask" command puts all the files you added into context and in your example here uses 13k input tokens each time. Is there a way to get around this somehow? Perhaps by embedding the codebase and retrieving chunks?

[@rosszhu1660]

Thank you so much. You helped me discover the pearls on the beach! I think AI Coding is going to change my life as a developer.

[@LordDevi]

Ricing related question. What is that editor I see you using with the glowing text? How are you achieving that glowy text look? It looks really nice.

[@tillcarlos664]

Your screen casts look cool, especially the halo around the mouse. which tool are you using for that?

[@parkerrex]

It looks like Cursor Pro.

[@igorshingelevich7627]

Great message in the intro!

[@saabirmohamed636]

I agree , aider is up to now for me thee best!

[@wanhonglau779]

Your sharing is truly ahead of time. Separately I am interested to know how well local LLM (paired with aided) performs on your same coding tasks. Do you have any experience using local LLM for your coding task?

[@MikeeBuildstech]

Hey Dan thanks for all the work that goes into making these videos. I have a quick question what theme are you using? I love the look of your theme!

[@garfield584]

Hm. No match, and cannot create file with wildcard characters: /add src/lib/* Where am I going wrong?

[@build.aiagents]

Have you tried running various Ollama modelfiles +Aider together with Open Intrepreter 🤔 could be interesting

[@indydevdan]

Local models aren't quite good enough for legit AI Coding especially on consumer hardware. That will likely change in 2025. I'm running benchmarks and will share local ai model coding when it's worth your time. Stay tuned.

[@build.aiagents]

@@indydevdan not even with aider with ollama + various modelfiles running deepseek-coder-v2? Or are you referring to the combine with open interpreter? I guess I’m wondering how it’d help if any adding something like open interpreter to the mix with aider and zed/cursor

[@babyfox205]

@@indydevdan but why the deepseek model is ranked right after sonnet 3.5 in the aider benchmarks? it is ranked higher than gpt-4o for some reason, but it's a local llm

[@zpinacz]

great real use case video, thank you for sharing!

[@anyfourwordphrase42]

I like the idea of aider but I just think I will ramp up my api costs on sonnet too much. I would use like $5-$10 a day I bet in tokens, given the rate I see in this example. I’m typically interacting and iterating and fixing bugs all day long on days when I’m actively programming. The devl loops seems better than Claude copy paste but the price will add up

[@eyoo369]

But then again imagine how cheap things have become. Usually you'd pay a dev a full month salary of 3.5 - 5k a month to do that work. Now its reduced to 5 - 10 token costs a day.

[@MostlyPeacefulNinja]

Yeah it’s definitely expensive. Those costs add up. It would make sense if you are working on software that makes money.

[@indydevdan]

I hear you but you should consider how valuable your time is. Paying $10 a day to save 30 minutes is an absolute... complete... no brainer decision for most builders and engineers. That's $20 to save an hour. Not to mention the price of top tier models will decrease over time. The ROI on ai coding is a tech revolution in itself.

[@MostlyPeacefulNinja]

@@indydevdan I agree with your sentiment, but what if someone is using this to save time at work, but their boss frowns upon using LLMs - or they suddenly get laid off. It will not make much sense. It’s cheaper to just pay for $20 a month and copy and paste that run it through the API if you are not using this directly for commercial purposes. Just my opinion

[@notme2136]

My actual costs have been a lot lower than aiders quotes

[@AINMEisONE]

Just wondering are those gangs signs your throwing into the black reflection, or Mudras or some dark finger magic? Pretty interesting how you do your videos... Thanks anyway!

[@stonedoubt]

You just gain my respect every video.

[@serafinalcantara5520]

I'm not sure if you knew, but after reading the Aider documentation, I saw that there is a set voice feature enabled like the one you created for the cursor. Check it out. It'd be cool if you made a video about your thoughts on why some developers are so against using coding assistants or their adaptation in the industry. I'm sure you've seen that it has been kind of divisive in the industry. However, I think it has way more benefits than cons. Save for the hallucinations and occasional errors, which are quickly resolved by overseeing the AI assistant and running it 2-3 more times while altering the prompt. But maybe there is something I am not seeing or that went over my head. Thank you for the content and all the tips you are sharing they are gold. Keep em coming 👍

[@chrisnieder5407]

Aider runs great. I tend to always hit the rate limit, are you using a pay plan for 3.5 sonnet api?

[@techfren]

Try openrouter

[@janvanveldhuizen]

I was very enthusiastic about Aider, but I used it so heavily, that I easily spent about $10 every few days. That's basically the only reason for me to use Cursor instead. It has a fixed price of $20 per month.

[@mrd6869]

I can only imagine how these coding assistants will take off by this time next year. Next class of foundational AI models will be extremely strong.

[@indydevdan]

I think about this a lot. This is how we position ahead of time to take advantage of the next class of models.

[@mrd6869]

@@indydevdan .Man look, we are in the opening chapter, before the jump that's coming. That Orion model is said to be 100x stronger than anything we have today. Bro..software engineering might be wrapped up. Like that thing will be optimizing itself at that level . I'm bringing a AI cybersecurity application to market, so i'm getting ready. DevDan in 2030 will probably be doing some wild shyt with AI🤣

[@babyfox205]

@@mrd6869 what Orion model, the next from openai? o1-mini already seems like can do full high quality coding in typescript, I tried it on a 100+ files project (a game in cocos2d) and composer can correctly understand full code base, suggest edits, argue about concepts, etc'. looks like from now on there's no point writing code manually, already :)

[@benjaminng8882]

Can I use aider without adding the additional git files?

[@errorbat]

Yes. Run aider with --no-git param

[@ginocote]

I was having problems with AIDER, because I always struggled to add files without needing a GitHub project. I asked the creators of AIDER to allow working on projects that weren't on GitHub and to make it easier to add files from the path in our terminal where our project is located. And he just made the update today and it's now easy to work on a project and adding files without the need to set à Github repo. After testing Cursor and all possible extensions for VS Code or Cursor, they all have issues or end up being too expensive due to the many repetitions and too much code being sent to the APIs. AIDER always ends up being by far the cheapest, the fastest and the best to generate working codes to the project compared to all these IDE extensions .

[@project-asgard]

Definitely going to use Aider more, now that Cursor is blocking the use of curtom models in Composer unless you're paying $20/month

[@babyfox205]

20$ as entry point to the magical world of ai coding is not much, the product is great imho.

[@babyfox205]

plus you'll burn roughly 20-30 anyway with using your own api keys during a month even on moderate context window usage, and with heavier tasks can burn even more, but in cursor it's included, so you don't really pay exactly 20 for composer feature, it's also the model usage, so all in all not a bad deal 🤔

[@redbaron3555]

Still? I agreed about Aider but not so sure anymore.

[@al3030]

You should try to be more subtle with your product placement/ad. If I’m watching a video about an AI code editor, I don’t want 2 minutes in to spend time on a text to diagram tool. Maybe place it later in the video and make it shorter.

[@babyfox205]

lol i doubt it's an ad, mermaid is an open source library, why would anyone pay him to promote it 😆 would be like paying to promote javascript 🤓, who will be the client who pays? but yeah that thingy is quite irrelevant to the tutorial and he spent too much time teaching us mermaid intricacies instead of aider and cursor differences ahah, still a good overview of aider.

[@alextrebek5237]

*If* aider had IDE (or neovim) integration for typing/linting, it *could* beat cursor. As it stands, JetBrains/IntelliJ/VSCode allows typing/linters, along with integrated docs (via comments), which aids the dev process

[@flor.7797]

I prefer chat

[@AndrewFalgout]

I agree with cursor being dangerous, but isn't depending on anthropic or other commercial model just as dangerous? Perhaps a video crawling open source models that might be comparable? I know they list on the site, but perhaps showing what the differences are?

[@chadjones4255]

The problem with Aider is that it does not see the output logs and it runs on the command line, so you are constantly pasting logs from one terminal to another and if logs are more than one line, things can easily break. It badly really needs a VS-Code plugin which allows it to watch the output logs and provide a multiline chat UI.

[@jsward17]

What your failing to realize is all the curation in the UI that makes composer worth it. You being in the terminal constantly is a non starter for anyone who doesn’t code natively.

[@Design-Enjoyment-Happiness]

Maybe a GUI interface could be developed

[@SejalDatta-l9u]

Totally agree. Cursor is terrible once paid for. 2 days ago it was perfect and a godsend. Since paying for it, its making more mistakes than chat gpt alone : violating its rules, misunderstanding simple prompts etc. Support teams are too maxed out to help. YT is fully of people pleasers, who dont tell you about both sides of the coin. Thanks for being factual and unbiased. Way too early to pay for Cursor guys!!

[@RemediosKeeling]

enterprise-ai AI fixes this. Aider is the OG AI.

[@ph4nt0mcz130]

There has been rumors that google is sleeping in the state of the art game compared to its size, huge context seems the right path to step in again

[@jeremiedecoop757]

I think Google has the potential to give its models an elephant-like memory, which could be a huge advantage, that said, there's still room for improvement when it comes to reasoning. Large context is definitely a step forward dealing with huge databases, but refining the models' reasonings might be the way to unlock more autonomous developement. For the last version of Aider, +70% of the the release was made by an agent based approach where o1 preview generates the reasoning of the architecture and another model follow-up taking care of developping and debugging functionalities. Now, the test-based approach, on which relies o1 for reasoning is showing incredible results in benchmarks.

[@mehdiboujid8761]

i hate dealing with custom api spendings you never know when you gonna get hit by a random 100$ bill

[@Design-Enjoyment-Happiness]

That's right, a lot of people want to set a spending cap as well

[@Aristocle]

better plantUML with c4 theme, as aesthetics.

[@build.aiagents]

Aider!

[@gslvqz8812]

But they do not look as nice as other diagram platforms

[@KrutoshReviews]

WHAT NOW?

[@greendsnow]

I use mermaid but it looks ugly to be honest. I wish there were a better looking tool.. :/

[@SamuelJunghenn]

Cursor customer support sucks stay away from them. You gave a problem and they just ignore you and leave you alone. Have sent multiple support requests and they never reply..

[@aiamfree]

aider ruined 3 hours of work for me once. Never again.

[@dimeloloco]

learn to use it before using it. Also you have undo functions and you can easily return to an old commit anytime. Your problem sounds like user error to me.

[@aiamfree]

@@dimeloloco it shouldnt be that fragile, I’m not some sort of ignorant novice lol

[@gmog7857]

You have totally lost me with your incessant typing as if everyone here can easily understand what you are doing> I have been trying to learn AI CODING but when I find channels like yours you tend to behave as if everyone watching is like you. I can follow instructions if you can be deliberate in showing how everything is setup....

[@AmanGusainGhost]

Maybe watch his older videos? He explained it there.

[@iritesh]

cursor composer sucks 🫠 in comparison to aider

[@LaunchwithAI]

😂 No, it doesn’t.

[@igorshingelevich7627]

Great message in the intro!

[@BizInNews]

I'm looking forward to seeing Aider working together with Ada 😉

[@igorshingelevich7627]

Great message in the intro!