Hacker News: robkam

New comment by robkam in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On?"

robkam — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:15:09 +0000

YtreeNova an XTreeGold-inspired, FOSS, keyboard-first Linux file manager built for fast, precise file work. Developed with AI assistance, but it does not run AI itself. https://github.com/robkam/ytreenova

New comment by robkam in "Ask HN: What was your "oh shit" moment with GenAI?"

robkam — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 15:57:37 +0000

My skepticism turned into a realization when I first asked an LLM to write anything nontrivial, and it just breezed through it. I am curious why many projects mentioned here seem to take people only a few hours or a weekend at most. I have been using LLMs to help rewrite the Ytree file manager originally written in nineties C. While the AI enables creating code of this complexity, the project still demands months of persistent effort.

Show HN: Ytree v3.0.0-alpha, an AI-assisted rewrite towards feature completeness

robkam — Tue, 12 May 2026 14:06:11 +0000

Ytree is a terminal file manager in the XTree style. It can log multiple volumes, collect selected files into a single list, filter that list for operations, and operate on one file at a time or on multiple files. It can also be used to preview, view, and edit files, read and write archives, and compare files and directories.

When I first used Linux in the 1990s, Werner Bregulla’s Ytree looked promising. Tinkering with Linux again recently, I found that Ytree was still not fully developed, so I set out to push it towards feature completeness.

Writing C at any non-trivial scale is beyond my abilities, so I am experimenting with AI-generated code, guided by Unix and FOSS conventions and what I understand to be best practice. The workflow has evolved from browser chat plus an editor and a diff tool to an agentic IDE, including many checks and QA passes before each commit.

In this workflow, the human steers the design and maintains quality control, while the AI does the heavy lifting. Working this way has enabled me to build the program I have long missed having.

It has taken months of coaxing and verification to get this far, and beta is still months away, but I am releasing v3.0.0-alpha now in the hope that it will be useful to others. It is usable, but expect rough edges, occasional UX/workflow bugs, and some features may still change or be removed.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48108510

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