Honzo
so uhhh
i made an ebook format
like a real one
like a whole ecosystem
it just kind of happened while i was minding my own business and suddenly it was 110 hours later and i had a reader and a converter and a spec and a demo suite and a drm system that i reinvented twice because apparently i enjoy pain
this is the story
or whatever this is
idk man i just work here ~ my brain
the beginning where i lie to myself
i started honzo with the classic lie
the one every engineer tells themselves
the little whisper that says
i’ll just make a tiny prototype
and then you blink and you’re knee deep in a binary container format with chunked compression and crc32 and a header that looks like it belongs in a museum
i wrote a 52 byte header and thought
cool i’m done
and then my brain said
haha no you’re not
and dragged me into a three week sprint i did not sign up for
the reader of which i accidentally grew a soul
the reader was supposed to be a test harness
like a little thing to see if the format worked
and then suddenly i was building pagination and themes and manga mode and search and print mapping and a whole layout engine that honestly should not exist but here we are
this was the moment i realized
oh
this is not a toy anymore
this is a creature
and i am responsible for it now
the tools where i blacked out and rebuilt the ui
inspect and convert were originally just html i slapped together at 3am
they looked like they were built by a sleep deprived gremlin
which is fair because they were
then one night i blinked and suddenly i was rebuilding the entire ui
- new header
- new layout
- new grid system
- new panels
- new chunk table
- new everything
i basically did a full renovation like i was on some hgtv show for developers
now the demo tools look like they belong in the same universe as the reader
which is wild because i did not plan any of this
it just happened
like a fever dream but with css
the drm saga where i reinvent cryptography twice
this part is my favorite because it is so stupid
i implemented drm once
cbc plus rsa
felt proud for like a bit
then realized i had basically recreated a cryptographic crime scene
so i ripped it all out and rebuilt it with gcm and x25519 like a normal person
so yes
i reinvented drm twice
in one day
because apparently i enjoy suffering and also because i refuse to ship cursed crypto
honestly iconic behavior
also I
did a lot
- docs
- spec
- kaitai
- c bindings
- ts bindings
- converters
- book maker gui
- design system
- diagrams
- examples
- polish
See the Macondo page lolll: https://macondo.hackclub.com/projects/3584 for my rambles.
and then suddenly
it was done
like actually done
not fake done
not i’ll finish it later done
but real done
the kind where you sit back and go
oh
i made a thing
and then i shipped it
because why not
chaos is my brand
the moment after where i stare at the wall
after shipping something big there’s this weird quiet
like the world holds its breath for a second
and you just sit there thinking
wow
i actually did that
me
the guy who said this would be a tiny experiment
lol
honzo exists now
it’s real
it’s out there
and i made it
in 111.2 hours
which is honestly unhinged but also kind of cool
what now
no idea
maybe nothing
maybe everything
maybe honzo becomes a footnote
maybe it becomes a standard
maybe i use it for something wild later
who knows
i’m just vibing
anyway
that’s the story
thanks for coming to my accidental ted talk
we’re here >:3