As [announced](https://steemit.com/steem/@crypticwyrm/open-sourcing-my-steem-apps-columns-for-steem-and-steem-observatory) a week ago, I'm starting to slowly Open Source all the apps I've written over the last few decades to add some more projects to my Github profile, and today my multi column (think Tweetdeck or Mastodon) client for Steem is on the menu.

https://github.com/cryptowyrm/columnsforsteem

![Screenshot_2018-11-13 cryptowyrm columnsforsteem(1).png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmbDpvjDfGmFqqxPt4xw4sqm7hKA4u227ScYyRZwBQ1ZVp/Screenshot_2018-11-13%20cryptowyrm%20columnsforsteem(1).png)

It's written in ClojureScript & Reagent and uses the dsteem JavaScript (well, TypeScript, same difference) library to connect to Steem. Pull requests, bug reports and features requests on Github are very welcome.

The app itself is available (for Firefox and Chrome based browsers) [here](https://crypticwyrm.neocities.org/columns/), or decentralized on IPFS [here](https://ipfs.io/ipns/crypticwyrm.neocities.org/columns/) and features both a light and dark theme.

![Screenshot_2018-11-13 Columns for Steem.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmRwHD88Qi8RfAAVz6UXm6aqoq4eQfcyxpGfep1Dca7nyu/Screenshot_2018-11-13%20Columns%20for%20Steem.png)

It's fully client side, there is no server component (just for development), so there are no privacy concerns when using the app. No ads, no tracking, no cookies, nothing. Now that it is also fully Open Source, that should make it even more trustworthy, which is important going forward when I add things like actually posting and voting on Steem posts, right now it just lets you view Steem as if it was a Microblogging service like Twitter, but clicking on an article opens the article on Steemit. I haven't had much time to work on the app over the last few months, but with this new release that is hopefully going to change, maybe I even find some new contributors who work on adding more features :)

If you want to work on the code and have never used ClojureScript & Reagent before, it's super easy to get into, I wrote a tutorial [here](https://steemit.com/programming/@crypticwyrm/writing-a-simple-todo-list-web-app-with-clojurescript-and-the-reagent-framework-tutorial). It's in my humble opinion the absolute best way today to write web apps, nothing I've ever tried (including Vue.js) is more productive. The project has the Nightlight editor integrated, a web based code editor specifically for Clojure and ClojureScript, so you don't even need to setup a development environment beyond installing Java and the boot build tool for Clojure. Hot reloading works out of the box, so development is really fun, you see changes live without losing any application state, without refreshing the browser.

Why did I choose the MIT license? I was playing around with using AGPL or GPL, but truth be told, licensing and publishing is the part of software development I dislike the most. I'm a nerd, I like staying up late at night, drinking something caffeinated and hacking on code. MIT is simple, it allows you to do pretty much everything, it's the most free license out there (other than public domain, which is a concept that doesn't exist in my country). Also, Steemit and Busy are MIT licensed, so it just makes sense. So my answer is, I wanted something simple ;)