Indie dev building desktop tools. Currently: ColumnLens — opens massive CSV/JSONL/Parquet files in seconds.

Germany
Joined October 2006
Apple approved ColumnLens for the Mac App Store. It's built with Dear ImGui and C++. Pretty sure it's one of the first ImGui apps on the store. Wrote up what the process looked like: marchildmann.com/blog/imgui-… #imgui #dearimgui #cpp #macOS #indiedev #buildinpublic
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Marc Hildmann retweeted
Pro tip for folks working with Apple documentation: add ".md" to the end of a URL to get it as Markdown – much lighter to load, and also friendlier for agents. Example: developer.apple.com/document…
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Marc Hildmann retweeted
dear imgui 1.92.9 released! github.com/ocornut/imgui/rel… - new liveedit on/off settings and defaults - tables track topology changes - metal4 rendering backend - timestamped settings entries (for cleanup etc.) - 50+ other changes/fixes (fonts, multi-select, popups, backends etc.).
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Built a working Windows 95 desktop in Dear ImGui — every bevel hand-drawn via DrawList, real file manager, and an MS-DOS Prompt running actual zsh through a pty. 1995 pixels, 2026 shell. Thank you @ocornut for the greatest UI library ever🙏 MIT: github.com/marchildmann/Beve…
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ImGUI is really dangerous ... I'm tempted to build a work environment for me running with a few MB of RAM on old hardware 🙈😂
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Marc Hildmann retweeted
Hi hi, Dear ImGui 1.92.7 is released! 50+ changes (e.g. tables reworked columns freezing with hidden columns, reorder from context menu, webgpu for emscripten 5 & wgvk native, nav keyboard/gamepad to open context menus, & many fixes/improvements) github.com/ocornut/imgui/rel…
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I dropped the TurboQuant paper into my app and asked it questions. No upload. No cloud. No subscription. Just my Mac, a custom 25 MB RAG engine, and answers in under a second. Follow along. #TurboQuant #BuildInPublic #LocalRAG #Privacy #AI #Defense #Government
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Spent the morning putting together a case study on analyzing healthcare data with ColumnLens. CDC mortality stats, CMS Medicare records, SQL queries, charts. All running locally on your Mac. columnlens.com/industries/me… #IndieDev #HealthData #SQL #MacOS
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24K impressions, zero sales. Classic indie dev moment. Let's think different: I'm giving away 10 free copies of ColumnLens. Reply with your biggest pain point working with large data files and I'll pick 10 people and DM you a code. All I ask: leave an honest App Store review.
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23K views. 400 clicks. 1 sale. This is fine. 🔥 #buildinpublic
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Whoohoo 🤘🏻🚀 Just got ColumnLens approved on the Mac App Store! A privacy-first, 100% local viewer for massive CSV, JSONL & Parquet files. apps.apple.com/us/app/column…
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Marc Hildmann retweeted
Automation consultants charge $15K for what Claude Code now does in 2 hours. I know because we're the ones who used to charge it. Here's the exact process: Step 1: Discovery (20 min) → Paste your org chart, tool stack, and top 3 bottlenecks → Claude interviews you with clarifying questions → Outputs a full process inventory ranked by time cost Step 2: Workflow Mapping (15 min) → Describe any department's daily operations in plain English → Claude builds a complete process map → Every manual handoff, redundant step, and automation trigger flagged Step 3: Opportunity Audit (10 min) → Feed it the workflow map output → Returns your top 10 automation opportunities → Ranked by ROI, complexity, and build time Step 4: Architecture Design (20 min) → Claude designs the full system architecture → Which tools connect where, what the data flow looks like → Agents for complex logic, linear flows for the repetitive stuff Step 5: Build (ongoing) → Claude writes the actual workflow JSON → Self-documents everything as it builds Step 6: The output. A live dashboard your whole team can work from. → Clickable process maps for every department → Automation opportunities ranked by ROI → Implementation progress by phase → KPIs updated in real time → One link you share with clients, freelancers, or your team to execute This is what we hand every client at the end of discovery. The .md file is what makes all of it possible. Without it, Claude guesses. With it, Claude builds like a $15K consultant. Like this post, RT and comment "BLUEPRINT" and I'll send you the full prompt stack and the .md file we use internally. (Must be following so I can DM you) 🎁 Bonus: The first 100 people get a real Precision AI Blueprint — an actual sample audit doc from a client engagement so you can see exactly what the output looks like.
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Your Mac can query millions of rows in milliseconds. Why are we still uploading data to the cloud? I built ColumnLens to fix that. Show HN: news.ycombinator.com/item?id…
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ColumnLens 2.0 is here. Open 5GB+ CSV, JSONL, Parquet & Excel files in seconds. Built-in SQL (DuckDB), interactive charts, 3D city visualization, and Lua scripting. Native C++, no Electron. Works on MacBook Neo too ;-) Free version available. columnlens.com
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I'm really proud of this feature.
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Back after mass years of silence. Built something: ColumnLens — opens massive CSV, JSONL & Parquet files in seconds. Native C++, no Electron. Free at columnlens.com
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Shoutout to @pedramamini for the early feedback when this was still just a JSONL viewer.
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