Kotlin without IntelliJ - Cursor AI with Uberto Barbini

I’ve been a JetBrains fan for many years, and, full disclosure, they give me free access to their tools as a Google Developer Expert.
Recently though, fellow GDE and author Uberto Barbini has been writing Kotlin not in IntelliJ, but using the Cursor - The AI Code Editor. Based on VSCode, what Cursor lacks in specific Kotlin support it makes up for with fantastic LLM integration.
So today I’m pairing with Uberto; or rather, talking to him while he pairs with Cursor.
In this video, Duncan, a long-time JetBrains fan, collaborates with Uberto, a fellow Google Developer Expert, to explore using Cursor, a VS Code-based code editor, for coding in Kotlin with powerful integration of Large Language Models (LLMs). They discuss Uberto's experience of performing test-driven development (TDD) using Cursor, which automates many coding tasks. Despite some issues such as minor coding errors and inconsistent results, both found significant productivity benefits. They use Cursor to develop an algorithm for a modified FizzBuzz problem. The session concludes with a plan to revisit their process with more granular TDD steps, showing both optimism and acknowledgment of the tool's current limitations.
00:00:35 Introducing Uberto Barbini
00:01:55 Introducing Cursor
00:05:08 AI set up the project
00:10:12 What is our requirement?
00:11:22 What about test first?
00:13:08 Lots of tests first it turns out
00:14:44 A class with just one operation is a function
00:15:57 Let's break the implementation that the AI wrote
00:18:52 Oh, so the tests were wrong!
00:19:30 What, the AI is println debugging now?
00:21:11 It offers nonsensical changes to fix its own wrong tests
00:23:38 Code Review
00:24:44 Next time let's actually test drive
The repo for the code is github.com/ube...
There is a playlist of AI episodes - • AI
If you are going to be at KotlinConf 2025, or even just in Copenhagen in May, then you should sign up for the workshop that Nat Pryce and I are running. It’s called Refactoring to Functional Kotlin, and will give you hands-on experience of taking legacy code and safely migrating it to a functional style. Places are limited, so buy now at kotlinconf.com...
I get lots of questions about the test progress bar. It was written by the inimitable @dmitrykandalov. To use it install his Liveplugin (plugins.jetbra...) and then this gist gist.github.co...
Uberto's prompt preamble for Cursor can be found at github.com/ube...
If you like this video, you’ll probably like my book Java to Kotlin, A Refactoring Guidebook (java-to-kotlin.dev). It's about far more than just the syntax differences between the languages - it shows how to upgrade your thinking to a more functional style. And check out Uberto's book, From Objects to Functions pragprog.com/t...

[@omnisoftllc]

I was searching for this yesterday

[@Talaria.School]

👌🏻

[@PairingWithDuncan]

I’m glad you enjoyed it