Ask HN: What are you building that's not AI related?

Hacker News Discussion ↗

HN users share a wide range of non‑AI projects they’re building, from new programming languages, dev tools, CAD apps and parsers to games, music hardware, web apps, wikis, and even woodworking shops and home bouldering walls. Many describe “scratching their own itch” with focused, often minimalist tools—photo managers, fasting trackers, PDF editors, RSS readers, niche search engines—while deliberately avoiding AI inside the products, even if they sometimes use it during development. A recurring theme is the satisfaction of hands‑on, human‑scale making as a counterweight to AI hype, along with an emphasis on privacy, simplicity, and long‑term maintainability.

Range of Non‑AI Projects

  • Wide variety of projects: dev tools, programming languages, games, educational apps, personal utilities, CAD, media tools, and physical builds.
  • Many are “scratch your own itch” efforts: fixing pain points with PDFs, photos, RSS, Shopify, email, iCloud photos, Apple Music libraries, volunteer coordination, school/club logistics, and bill splitting.
  • Several long‑running labors of love: a 20‑year forum, decade‑long photo manager, and multi‑year games and language projects.

Developer Tools, Languages & Infrastructure

  • New programming languages and config languages (Pascal‑inspired, music‑focused, config DSLs, Nix parser reimplementation).
  • Build tooling alternatives: replacement for CMake/Ninja, SQL interface for DynamoDB, Postgres driver with pipelining, WebAssembly toolkit in Go, Web APIs over Elixir, “personal cloud” fabric, chaos‑testing CLI.
  • Desktop and web dev frameworks: Go+browser GUI framework, PureScript+Qt apps, NodeGUI, descriptive PC setup tools, 3‑way diff editor, JSONPath tester.

Apps, Services & Platforms

  • Consumer‑facing tools: intermittent fasting tracker, journaling app, self‑tracking app, Korean learning game, math learning platform, volunteering platform, search engine alternative, Substack and RSS discovery tools, Postgres mailing list reader.
  • Media and creative: offline PDF search, browser PDF editor, image editor, audio streaming platform, ESP32 synthesizer, structural biology GUI, behavior data visualizer, photo apps better than AI search.
  • Identity, privacy, and “trustworthy” tech: non‑profit identity service, privacy‑minded search, email with explicit “no AI” policy, delayed‑FOSS license tracker.

Games & Creative Experiences

  • Multiple indie games for web, desktop, and Playdate, plus plant and car‑on‑Mars sandboxes, word games, crossword generators (including from Anki decks), and LARP with custom spatial hardware.
  • Emphasis on constraints and “doing it for the doing,” often rejecting AI in the core experience even if used for initial scaffolding.

Physical & Offline Projects

  • Home workshops, woodworking, bouldering walls, drones, LEGO builds, FPGA‑based 16‑bit console, ESP32 hardware, and real‑world synths and cases.
  • Several comment on these as therapeutic escapes from AI/tech overload.

Attitudes Toward AI

  • Thread is explicitly “non‑AI,” but some describe using AI as a coding assistant while keeping shipped products non‑AI.
  • A few posts express skepticism or fatigue with AI hype; others treat AI pragmatically as just another tool.