June 22, 2026
Commit view or commit crime?
Show HN: I rebuilt the only parts of my IDE I use, in Rust, over a weekend
Weekend side project turns into a full-on comment war over AI, Rust, and what coders need now
TLDR: A developer built a lightweight app for reviewing code changes and commits over a weekend, aiming to replace the slow parts of a giant coding program. Commenters split fast: some loved the clean design, while others argued AI tools already do this better — or joked the AI built it anyway.
A developer jumped onto Hacker News to show off Kyde, a stripped-down coding app built in Rust over a weekend that focuses on the parts they still use most: viewing changes, comparing edits, and committing code. In plain English, it’s basically a sleek, speedy tool for reviewing what changed in your files without waiting for a huge, bloated app to wake up. And yes, the crowd immediately had feelings.
Some people were instantly sold. One of the first reactions was basically, "UI looks great", while another user declared, "This is amazing and I will use this!" That’s the warm, fuzzy side of the internet. Then the claws came out. The spiciest fight wasn’t really about the app itself — it was about what programmers even need anymore in the age of AI helpers. One camp argued that if a coding tool doesn’t include serious debugging and profiling features, it’s missing the point entirely. Another side said this is exactly what modern AI-assisted workflows already do, except those tools also let you chat with the bot in one place.
And then came the most Hacker News accusation possible: did the developer really build this, or did Claude do the heavy lifting? One commenter snarked that the “real” title should be I had Claude code up a diff tool in Rust over the weekend, while another suggested the post only blew up because Rust fans always hit the boost button. So the vibe was clear: half the audience saw a fast, beautiful little app; the other half saw an AI-era identity crisis with a side of programming-language fandom.
Key Points
- •The article introduces Kyde as a native Rust-based Git client and code editor centered on commit and diff workflows rather than full IDE functionality.
- •Kyde is described as supporting macOS, Linux, and Windows, with performance claims including roughly 120fps scrolling on a 37,000-line file.
- •Its core Git features include side-by-side editable diffs, word-level highlighting, hunk staging or reverting, rollback, push support, and branch switching.
- •The application uses gpui for native GPU-rendered UI, shells out to git instead of using libgit2, and uses tree-sitter and similar for highlighting and diffing.
- •The article lists editor capabilities such as file browsing, find and replace, Markdown preview, image preview, fuzzy search, repo-wide search via git grep, configurable themes, and customizable keymaps.