SMRTR ProgrammingFeb 16, 2026Hacker News

Building for an audience of one: starting and finishing side projects with AI

SMRTR summary

A developer built FastTab, a custom X11 task switcher written in Zig, using Claude AI to overcome performance issues with Plasma's built-in switcher. Starting with zero Zig or X11 experience, they created a working prototype in days through iterative AI-assisted development. The process involved detailed specification planning, containerized development for safety, and manual refinement of AI-generated code.

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