Agentic Coding: I Don’t Know Why, But It’s Really Good!

​Cursor significantly improved software development productivity. Claude Code, an Agentic Coding Tool, is out of this world!

In the last month, Cursor became my coding companion. Early in my career, I built expertise in front-end technologies and languages, and knew Objective-C in detail. I also understand Kotlin and TypeScript for reading and understanding Android and web code.

My current project is backend-focused, written in Python. Before Cursor, I often stumbled on small things like determining the length of a string. These interruptions distracted me from my goal. Cursor eliminated these issues with clever autosuggestions and a helpful companion that could translate my implementation idea into concrete code. A magical experience compared to coding a few years ago.

At some point, I installed SuperWhisper, which uses local LLM models for speech-to-text. Forget Siri or other services, these new tools just work. It enhanced my workflow with Cursor because it became much easier to just talk to Claude instead of writing. I found out that the more I talk, the more context I give Cursor and the better my answers get.

I was quite happy with my workflow and my productivity until I installed Claude Code. It’s a very different coding setup, because Claude Code just runs in the command line and isn’t integrated into an IDE like Cursor. This was initially a drawback, but turns out to be an advantage. It makes it easier to get into an agentic workflow, which I describe below. You could also call it hands-off coding. Peter Steinberger posted a three-hour video and a blog post on using Claude Code. I mostly copied his approach.

So, I wholeheartedly recommend you to load up your Anthropic account with $20 and follow these five steps:

1. Dictate your specifications via voice into Gemini 2.5 Pro and ask it to create a software specification from these ramblings. Gemini is a really chatty model that outputs a lot of things, which is good in this case.
2. Open a new Gemini chat and feed it the software specification. Ask for the strong parts and areas to improve. It does a fantastic job of finding improvement-worthy parts.
3. Together with this feedback, review the spec yourself. There is no need to manually edit the document. Read the document and dictate again what you are thinking. After this step, you should have a document that you are happy with.
4. Start Cloud Code, switch to use Opus as a model (type /model) and ask it to implement the software according to the specification. You’ll have to allow it to do a lot of things like create folders etc.
5. This is the tough part: Stay hands off. Start the app afterward and be prepared for some small compile errors, then it should work.

Here are some guidelines for your first project:

• Ask it to write the project in an AI-friendly language. This is mostly TypeScript or Python. Pick the one you’re more familiar with to review the code afterwards.
• Be agile in your project planning. Don’t ask it to write the next Android operating system. Instead, start with a small, sizable project that you can afterwards verify. Something a junior developer would finish in 3-5 days is good. The first step of a side project you always wanted to write but never found the time is awesome!

If you do it, let me know how it goes! It’s miraculous why Claude Code works so much better than anything else I’ve tested. I’ll try to find out why until next week!

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What to Print this Week

This newsletter started out on 3D printing. If you haven't had any contact with it, you should, it's great! Here's the most interesting and funniest projects I saw last week.

I don't like projects with magnets anymore, because magnets come in soo many sizes, you can't have them all. And then they can also have different strength, leading to mediocre results so far. These fridge magnets are cute, tempted to try again.

Ice Cream Fridge Magnet visit model page ​

How cool is that? A surfboard for your fingers, even in a slick two-color design.

Finger Surfboard visit model page ​

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It's a shame this project has so few likes. A whole family of ridiculous looking monsters. Already printed Goofy Green, aside from a lot of color change poop he came out great!

YipYip Family visit model page ​

Hi 👋, I'm Stefan! This is my weekly newsletter about new technology hypes in general and AI in specific. Feel free to forward this mail to people who should read it. If this mail was forwarded to you, please subscribe here.

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