I’m shop floor supervisor at Ravnsgaard Metal in Randers. I used to run my own machine shop, and I still build software for manufacturing — Gantt views, quoting tools, QC apps, that kind of thing. I’m not a full-time developer. I know enough to get things working, but I don’t want to spend a week on boilerplate when the problem is really “pull this from Monitor and show it on a chart.”
That’s where Cursor comes in.
Why not just VS Code?
I used VS Code for years. Still fine. Cursor is VS Code with the AI baked in properly — not a sidebar plugin you forget to open, but the main way you work. For the stuff I build, that difference matters.
Most of my projects are small, practical, and mine alone. No big team, no code review process, no time to read three frameworks before picking one. I need to describe what I want, get a first draft, poke at it, and move on.
How I actually use it
I keep a repo open, explain the task in plain language, and let the agent work across files. Add a Flask route. Fix a broken filter. Wire up a new page on the site. Refactor something that’s getting messy.
I read the diffs. Always. I’m not handing the keys to the shop floor software and walking away — I check that it does what I asked and that I understand what changed. If something looks wrong, I say so and we iterate.
For bigger tasks I break it down: fix the schema first, then the UI, then the content. Smaller steps, fewer surprises.
Models I reach for most: Composer 2.5 for day-to-day coding, Qwen 3.6 when I want a second opinion or a different angle on a problem.
What it’s good at
- Getting from zero to something runnable fast
- Tedious wiring — routes, forms, config, repetitive CRUD
- Digging through a codebase I haven’t touched in a month
- Spelling out steps when I’m stuck on syntax or a library I don’t use every day
What it’s not
It doesn’t know Ravnsgaard Metal. It doesn’t know Monitor ERP quirks, how we quote parts, or why a tolerance parser needs to handle a stacked dimension on a Danish drawing. That’s still on me. The AI speeds up the typing; the domain knowledge is mine.
Same rule as CAM: the tool is only as good as the person holding it. Cursor doesn’t replace thinking — it cuts down the gap between knowing what you want and having it in the repo.
For what I’m building, that’s enough.