It's such a fast moving space, perhaps the need for 'rules' is just a temporary thing, but right now the rules will help you to achieve more predictable results and higher quality code.
You could easily end up with a lot of rules if you are working with a reasonably large codebase.
And as you work on your code, every time you have to deal with an issue of the code generation you ask Cursor to create a new rule so that next time it does it correctly.
In terms of AI programming vs conventional programming, the writing's on the wall: AI assistance is only getting better and now is a good time to jump on the train. Knowing how to program and configure your AI assistants and tools is now a key software engineering skill.
Is this an especially better (easier, more efficient) route to a working, quality app/system than conventional programming?
I’m skeptical if the answer to the way to achieve 10x results is 10x more effort.