Dev with 30 YOE built his dream karaoke app in 14 days with Claude, open-sourced it
hitnrun51 · reddit · 2026-10-09
A developer with 30 years of experience (10+ in C++, zero in Rust) used Claude to build Karaokemachine — the karaoke app he had failed to finish five times over 18 years — in just 14 days, now open-sourced under MIT.
Highlights:
- Claude analyzed his repo history, understood the five prior attempts, and delivered a working app with 5x the features he'd dreamed of
- He never looked at the code, and even had Claude write a doc to teach him Rust from the codebase
- Runs on Windows/Linux/Mac/Android/iOS and as a VR app on Meta Quest 3; supports mid/kar, MP3+G, UltraStar and LRC formats — each took about one prompt and 30 minutes
- Claude analyzed MIDI files on its own, implemented the missing synth features in rustysynth, and fixed obscure timing/spacing quirks in real-world MIDI files
- He argues it wasn't vibe coding: he knew exactly what to build, just never wrote the code himself
He estimates doing it solo would have taken a year or a team.
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