# Seven years of bitwise: a weekend project, a Hackernews front page, and the long road into Debian

DevFeed: [Seven years of bitwise: a weekend project, a Hackernews front page, and the long road into Debian](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/seven-years-of-bitwise-a-weekend-project-a-hackernews-front-page-and-the-long-road-into-debian-21707.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://nativeguru.wordpress.com/2026/09/11/seven-years-of-bitwise-a-weekend-project-a-hackernews-front-page-and-the-long-road-into-debian/>)

Author: Ramon

Published: 2026-09-11T15:21:24Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Ramon Fried](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/ramon-fried.md>)

Topics: [Software](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software.md>), [Command-line interface](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cli.md>), [Debian](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/debian.md>)

Tags: [c](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/c.md>), [command-line](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/command-line.md>), [debian](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/debian.md>), [hacker-news](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/hacker-news.md>), [linux](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/linux.md>), [ncurses](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ncurses.md>), [open-source](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/open-source.md>), [packaging](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/packaging.md>), [software](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software.md>), [vim](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/vim.md>)

## AI overview

A developer reflects on seven years of maintaining bitwise, a terminal calculator, from its initial release through feature development, Hacker News attention, and packaging in Debian and other distributions.

## Source excerpt

I started bitwise because I was tired of opening the KDE calculator. Seven years, one Hacker News front page and sixteen distributions later, here's what I learned -- mostly about how hard it is to get software to people.