The "Tab" Addiction

It started with GitHub Copilot. You press Tab to autocomplete a line. Cute.

Then came Cursor. You press Command+K and it writes the whole function.

Now comes Windsurf. It reads your mind, edits 12 files at once, and fixes the bugs it just created.

We are no longer writers. We are Editors.

The Speed Gap

I tried to go back to "Vanilla" VS Code yesterday. It felt like running in molasses.

The Contenders

I spent a week with each. Here is the breakdown.

1. GitHub Copilot (The OG)

It's just a plugin. It's polite. It stays in its lane.

• Vibe: The helpful intern who sometimes hallucinates.
• Best feature: It's everywhere.

2. Cursor (The Aggressive Fork)

They forked VS Code. They made it "AI Native." It feels like the editor is alive.

• Vibe: The senior engineer who grabs your keyboard and types "Move over."
• Best feature: Composer (Multi-file edits).

3. Windsurf (The New Challenger)

From Codeium. They call it "Flow." It tracks what you look at, not just what you type.

• Vibe: The psychic mind-reader.
• Best feature: Context awareness is scary good.

The "Skill Rot" Problem

Here is the dark side.

If I stop paying my $20 subscription, I can no longer do my job.

My brain has offloaded the syntax for React.useEffect to the cloud. I don't remember how to center a div. I just type "make it pretty" and hit Enter.

We are becoming Prompt Engineers whether we like it or not.

Conclusion

Cursor wins today. It's just faster.

But Windsurf is watching.

And Vanilla VS Code? RIP. You had a good run.