Some screenies and the code at 0…

I struggle to understand why, though.

0: https://github.com/isene/chasm

Did OP write this by hand? It reads like language written by a human overfitted on GPT 4o or Claude.

I’m inspired by the message.

On this software itself: I’d like to know how this feels to use. It’s so very lightweight. Does it feel categorically different to what we are used to?

One of the things I miss about the 1980s home computers is that they booted into a usable command line in a handful of seconds, from a few KB in ROM. Imagine what today’s HW could do if we’d retained that level of efficiency.

Why did you choose to have Claude write it in assembly language?

There are big benefits to using a language that has good static analysis with LLMs.

This is very cool. I wonder how much time did it actually take, and how much did it cost, because Clause Code is very much not free [1] [2]. It's more like hiring a robotic contractor, very fast, but with a serious hourly rate.

[1]: https://fortune.com/2026/04/28/nvidia-executive-cost-of-ai-i...

[2]: https://www.briefs.co/news/uber-torches-entire-2026-ai-budge...

I find this fascinating. I also like to customize my desktop experience with my own code, but it's more assembling stuff with some additional code as glue.

A word of warning: a reliable lock tool for X11 is difficult. You should look at XSecureLock, which uses a multiprocess approach to avoid leaving the desktop unprotected in case of crash. It also implements a number of countermeasure to ensure the desktop stays locked and the locker stays in the front of the display. It's small too, so easy to audit (but written in C).

Sorry I have a question that is a little off-topic: what's the value of generating an image of a laptop on a desk? That's not like it's particularly relevant, when you could have integrated a screen shot of your set-up (like the same one you put on a few of your repos) or something more unique, and even if you want to show that, it's easy to find similar images with the same vibe, so I guess it's for some fun I missed in the process?

I (and I'm sure many others) have been thinking about this a lot over the last couple of months. I called it "Extremely Personal Software" in a blog post (https://redfloatplane.lol/blog/14-releasing-software-now/) but there are lots of names floating about for the same basic idea.

I think, maybe, the amount of new software that will be written for an audience of 1-10 will be greater in 2026 than in any previous year, and then the same again for many years to come. I also think a lot of this software will be essentially 'hidden' - people just writing this stuff for themselves because the cost to say things to an agent is very low compared with the cost of actually planning out a software design and so forth.

Interoperability will probably be important in the next few years and I wonder if this is something solvable at the agent/LLM level (standing instructions like 'typically, use sqlite, use plaintext, use open standards' or whatever). I also think observability and ops will be pretty important - many people who want personal software but don't care for the maintenance and upkeep.