Playing with zim files
Vibe coding, or the assisted coding, as some prefer to say, has become a brilliant way to tinker with code that other way would be out of reach (either because of lack of skill, or time, or pure laziness). It allows anyone to produce runnable code for simple common tasks without relying on other peoples code. Bespoke solutions for single problems. This has been very clear to me recently with openZim.
Zim files are a files that hold entire websites for offline viewing. Originally thought as a way to have Wikipedia save to disk (all 115GB of it, and brilliantly I’ll say), they could be used for other websites too… Hm…
“Could I offer a ZIM file of sixhat.net”
Sure I can, but what if, instead of finding someone else’s code, I simply coded my little tool? Yes, that’s what I/it vibe coded. Asked deepseek to code zim-maker so I could create sixhat.zim every time I post something. Don’t have the time to research the full zim format, to think of an architecture for this tool, or to even think about the time I’d be spending coding this. All of that would put me off. With vibe coding, this was a two hour session (mixed with other important stuff). In the end I have a tool that I can use.
Is it complete? Yes, for what need. Does it have RANDOM FEATURE. Probably not. It is probably full of bugs then? Yes, but the attack space and victims are very limited. Are you releasing the code? Why? If it is mostly code generated by AI? I might send copies to anyone that asks but why publish this online?
You can do the same thing in a couple of hours and a free AI agent. Don’t go and run other people’s code. People that you only met through reading a blog post are not a trustworthy source of anything, least code.
ZIM Readers
If you want a ZIM reader (besides coding your own, with or without AI) you can use one from the openZIM readers list.
On the mac I use Kiwix (just because I’m lazy) and there’s also a version for Android.