What

First of all this is an experiment. And it is related to AI development that is hyped through the roof, but somehow it does not match the expectation in most cases. I decided to explore the world of spec-driven development and try to learn more about how to use AI in developemnt and test all the claims (like from Anthropic talking heads) what it can do.

Zecsite example

Zecsite

Zecsite is an idea I had when I was browsing Dread forum and found a thread about HTML tricks to achieve JavaScript-like behavior with CSS. I wanted to try how that works but only with AI it got more simple to start the idea to evolve it.

OK, so Zecsite is more things together:

Generator - data collector + website creator
Publisher - publishes the website to selected channels (web/tor/i2p/ipfs)
The Website - the final product generated by the generator and published by the publisher.

Project

First is the project that is generator of static HTML website with CSS and SVG graphics, no JavaScript. The idea is to generate static HTML website without JavaScript that would not suck (design) and still would provide useful information and be useful/comfortable to use. I decided to try Quarkus (wanted to learn Quarkus - didn't) with Java (I know Java the most - comparing to other languages).

Idea is to create simple website, in this case about Zcash, that aggregates lates news and stats and to be available to everyone. I tried to make an education section with some simple and brief intro too, so hopefully it could work as kind of onboarding too.

Product

The product is obviously the website itself. But with recent push for more surveillance and less privacy and freedom, i do not see much hype around onion services, eepsites, nor ipfs. They are different pieces that seems to me ignored (suprisingly) by community and I took the opportunity to try to move pieces to some direction (even though no one gives a fuck, obviously).

The end result is HTML website with multiple themese, and possible even localization (czech is really just test for now to prove it is possible), to prove the website could be still attractive and useful even without all the JavaScript crap that sends multiple data about you elsewhere.

Where

if you want some fancy theme you can try:

Why

And why not? I decided to move form mobile (Android) Apps (since Google decide to be asshole and be evil finally) to web apps where is harder to be choked by one provider (cudos to Graphane and Obtanium to keep the hope). I still plan to open source my mobile apps (and maybe make them available again with Obtanium), but I need to clean the mess a bit.

Also, I always wanted to try to create onion service and eepsite, I read about couple of times but I never got to it. And I think the Zcash is good match to this group. Now Monero bros can hate Zcash on the so called darknet more. Or maybe even try to shut down my sloppy try. But in case the project idea resonates with you, you can try to run your own instance, too! I tried to torture Claude (both Opus and Fable) to come up with simple setup script that would help you to set your own instance with ease (not sure though, you have to try by yourself).

Moreover, I think people should be aware of alternatives to standard webrowsing, if they really want to preserve at least some level of the privacy (Tor/i2p) or at least have an unrestricted access to information (IPFS - not annonymous!)

Conclusion

I am tired of privacy cosplay. I wanted to try shake the boat and make some waves. This is experiment of project I wanted tried to built (even before AI) with another experiment of trying to find out how to use AI for building (AI workflow is part of the repo, feel free to try or hate). I might write more about experience with AI development in some future post. But now I need to finish another experiment, that I think might be quite useful, who knows...

Zecsite - static JavaScript-free website generator in Java for Zcash news