Working Notes on Agent Systems/Brad Zhang

@teach_fireworks / X longform

Can I still board the old Cursor? IDE ➕Coding ➕Reading is something I've been thinking about for a long time.

Can I still board the old Cursor? IDE ➕Coding ➕Reading is something I've been thinking about for a long time. CC, Codex made me ten times more efficient and produced a lot...

July 22, 2026 · 2 min read

Can I still board the old Cursor? IDE ➕Coding ➕Reading is something I've been thinking about for a long time. CC, Codex made me ten times more efficient and produced a lot of quality content, code, websites, videos. As a software engineer, developer and architect, the current way of vibe did indeed completely change the way I used to work and behave, including some ways of thinking. However, the biggest feeling for me is that I want to be a token consumer. I make choices and decisions for CLI and app that I think have taste. It provides me with high-quality results. I pay a subscription fee of $200 per month. Almost every day after staying up late, I can't stop like a token addict. I basically didn't have time to play the game for two months, or watched a 2-hour movie in its entirety, and bought five new books without opening them. This appearance of K3 made me start thinking again, because it is ten times slower than 5.6 sol, but I have a lot of tasks that rely on front-end, artistic, visual and other abilities, which just allows me to return to normal human rest, and the parallel tasks at hand rely on it to complete. After having to slow down, I understood that as a human being, I could not delusionally catch up with the speed of AI, just be moderate, and not be too greedy. It was like getting a child with a large can of candy and sending sugar to his mouth. All it brought was bitterness and tooth decay. Maybe I will spend 30% of my energy returning to the IDE ➕Coding ➕Reading model, a model of human behavior that seems retro now. PS: The above is a passage of text knocked by hand in a state of a little carbon halitosis after the blood sugar at lunch rises.

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Article argument map

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FORMATTOPICCAPABILITYMARKETcoverssignalssignalsFORMATlongform noteTOPICtoolingCAPABILITYdeveloper toolingCAPABILITYevaluation
Mermaid outline
flowchart LR
  format-long_post["longform note"]
  topic-tooling["tooling"]
  capability-developer-tooling["developer tooling"]
  capability-evaluation["evaluation"]
  format-long_post -->|covers| topic-tooling
  format-long_post -->|signals| capability-developer-tooling
  format-long_post -->|signals| capability-evaluation

Visual structure

Essay structure map

Built from summary and key paragraph positions

Can I still board the old Cursor? IDE ➕Coding ➕Reading is something I've been thinkin...THESISCan I still board theold Cursor? IDE➕Coding ➕Reading issomething I've beenSIGNALCan I still board theold Cursor? IDE➕Coding ➕Reading issomething I've beenOPERATORCan I still board theold Cursor? IDE➕Coding ➕Reading issomething I've beenIMPLICATIONCan I still board theold Cursor? IDE➕Coding ➕Reading issomething I've been
Mermaid outline
flowchart LR
  thesis["Can I still board the old Cursor? IDE ➕Coding ➕Reading is something I've been thinking about for a long tim..."]
  signal["Can I still board the old Cursor? IDE ➕Coding ➕Reading is something I've been thinking about for a long tim..."]
  operator["Can I still board the old Cursor? IDE ➕Coding ➕Reading is something I've been thinking about for a long tim..."]
  implication["Can I still board the old Cursor? IDE ➕Coding ➕Reading is something I've been thinking about for a long tim..."]
  thesis -->|frames| signal
  signal -->|develops| operator
  operator -->|lands in| implication

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