Top all-time · #809
zserge's blog
Personal blog · zserge.com · on HN as zsergeprogrammingsystems
zserge's blog is a personal blog at zserge.com about programming and systems. Since 2012, 81 different Hacker News readers have linked it 133 times, most often “The Story Behind Fenster”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (24) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link zserge's posts as examples of tiny, minimal projects: build-your-own-X guides, KVM in a few lines, and a minimal GUI library. Commenters mostly cite them for technical reference.
- Recommended for · 6 comments
- Commenters call the posts fun, cool, and impressive, and recommend them as starting points for build-it-yourself projects (KVM, a minimal GUI library, a JSON pa
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 24 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Home page of Serge Zaitsev
Most-linked posts?
- The Story Behind Fenster7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2023-01-23
- How Do One-Time Passwords Work?5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-01-07
- A “Better C” Benchmark5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-03-24
- How to create minimal music with code in any programming language5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-10-24
- Post-Apocalyptic Programming4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-08-05
- KVM host in a few lines of code4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-05-14
- Partcl – a tiny command language4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-08-12
- Lambda support for android (with retrolambda backporting tool)3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2014-01-08
- CUCU: a compiler you can understand (though it's a really ugly one)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-10-25
- Minimal Code Editor in JavaScript (2020)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-03-06
What Hacker News says?
Dalvik is being slowly replaced by ART (Android RunTime). Also, you can pretty easily hack Java 7 or even Java 8 into Android to use lambdas. Official, default support is coming soon. http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/new-build-system/user-gui... http://zserge.com/blog/android-lambda.html
Comment linking /blog/android-lambda.html
on “An Opinionated Guide to Modern Java Development, Part 1”Submitted Tmux for Mere Mortals as a story · 586 points
HN discussionNice and clean! I have been playing around the possibility to make a 2x3 bitmap font, but that turned out to be rather a cryptic constellation of pixels than a proper font: https://zserge.com/posts/tiny-font/
Comment linking /posts/tiny-font/
on “Creep – a pretty sweet 4px wide pixel font”Submitted Linux containers in a few lines of code as a story · 458 points
HN discussionhttps://zserge.com/posts/ has some good “build your own X” articles, including: * a clone of React.js and Vue.js in <1K bytes minified * a web-based code editor and office suite * a chess engine * a TCL interpreter * a two-step verification client * a simplified C compiler
Comment linking /posts/
on “Build Your Own X”Submitted Awfice – A collection of tiny office suite apps as a story · 338 points
HN discussionOnly related if you just read the title and ignore the rest, but I loved this article: https://zserge.com/posts/etude-in-c/ Covered on HN late last year https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24940624 ("How to create minimal music with code in any programming language") Also related to bytebeats: https://soundcloud.com/robertskmiles/bitshift-variations-in-...
Comment linking /posts/etude-in-c/
on “Ask HN: How to get started with audio programming?”Submitted How to write a toy JVM as a story · 335 points
HN discussionMay I suggest a more lightweight alternative for Tmux/Screen/DVTM sessions - http://zserge.com/blog/mucks2.html ?
Comment linking /blog/mucks2.html
on “Tmux 2.0 released”Submitted Zig, the Small Language as a story · 313 points
HN discussionhttps://zserge.com/posts/worst-react-ever/ https://zserge.com/posts/worst-vuejs-ever/
Comment linking /posts/worst-vuejs-ever/
on “Why I don't miss React: a story about using the platform”Submitted By the Power of Grayscale as a story · 274 points
HN discussion"KVM host in a few lines of code" ( https://zserge.com/posts/kvm/ ) is a fun article to get started with.
Comment linking /posts/kvm/
on “QEMU Internals”Submitted How to create minimal music with code in any programming language as a story · 265 points
HN discussionYeah I also found myself curious as to how KVM actually works, I found these helpful https://www.kernel.org/doc/ols/2007/ols2007v1-pages-225-230.... http://www.haifux.org/lectures/312/High-Level%20Introduction... https://zserge.com/posts/kvm/
Comment linking /posts/kvm/
on “QEMU 10.1.0”Submitted Scalable, Resilient Brainfuck as a story · 238 points
HN discussionIn my experience, a new toy c compiler pops up roughly once a year. https://github.com/Wilfred/babyc http://www.sigbus.info/how-i-wrote-a-self-hosting-c-compiler... http://zserge.com/blog/cucu-part1.html https://c9x.me/qcc/ https://github.com/alexfru/SmallerC
Comment linking /blog/cucu-part1.html
on “Integrating “safe” languages into OpenBSD?”Submitted Post-Apocalyptic Programming as a story · 187 points
HN discussionThe app will have to be reimplemented in a way that doesn't screw up the input. < https://zserge.com/posts/js-editor/ >
Comment linking /posts/js-editor/
on “DuckDuckGo as a TTY”Submitted A “Better C” Benchmark as a story · 183 points
HN discussionSorry, blog layout has changed since then. https://zserge.com/posts/cucu-part1/
Comment linking /posts/cucu-part1/
on “Small C Compilers”Submitted Ode to J as a story · 163 points
HN discussionOh, finally I'm not alone here! I use vim/tmux and yesterday I discovered Buck and made a quick project generator: http://zserge.com/blog/buck-build-system.html
Comment linking /blog/buck-build-system.html
on “Android M Developer Preview and Tools”Submitted KVM host in a few lines of code as a story · 158 points
HN discussionUses under 1.5 MB of memory at any one time (most of it is used for drawing the window). Unfortunately there is no screenshot and I have no access to a Mac at the moment, but if View.c is where things actually happen, that is a huge amount of memory just for a (resizeable?) window with a little filled rectangle in it. The memory usage of a trivial app like this should be measured in kilobytes. Comparing applications…
Comment linking /posts/fenster/
on “C-Macs – a pure C macOS application”Submitted AI or Ain't: Eliza as a story · 123 points
HN discussionA humble attempt to make an even smaller but barely readable 3x2 font (probably the smallest possible) : https://zserge.com/posts/tiny-font/
Comment linking /posts/tiny-font/
on “4x4 ASCII Font (2016)”Submitted Poor Man's Web as a story · 122 points
HN discussionA while ago I created an even smaller typeface (2x3) but that is barely readable without memorising certain glyphs: https://zserge.com/posts/tiny-font/
Comment linking /posts/tiny-font/
on “Smallest Typeface”Submitted Partcl – a tiny command language as a story · 114 points
HN discussion
