I've been trying out Windsurf for the past two weeks with VS Code and I find it (and Copilot) very helpful, but also very annoying. Occasionally, the windsurf command overlays (explain, accept, etc...) will get stuck and make it impossible to see the code until I restart VS Code. But the biggest problem that I have is with automatic auto-complete. With both Windsurf and copilot, I have trouble figuring out when / if an autocompleted function or line of code will be accepted or generated. I'm still trying to figure out a good way to integrate my coding style with the tools, but I'm still trying because the work has been impressive thus far.

I'm now also trying the same with with Claude-code, which has been pretty useful too. It managed to figure out and explain a fairly technical code base (a few DNA processing algorithms). I haven't tried with with code I'm unfamiliar with yet.

So, my verdict so far: well worth the effort to try it and learn what's available. It's not that expensive to try. If it can help automate somethings (documentation and tests, for example), that's what I'm really hoping to use the AI assistants for. It works for actual coding too, but I still prefer to provide the main foundation.