45 People Used Something I Built Out of Spite

Taha — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:12:53 +0000

Every developer has that one coworker.

The one who notices the tiniest thing about your setup.

Mine looked at my screen for approximately three seconds before asking,

"Taha... why aren't you using the dark theme?"

A reasonable question.

Unfortunately for him, I took it personally.

Now, to be fair, I wasn't against dark mode.

I just hadn't bothered changing it.

But after hearing that question for what felt like the hundredth time, something inside me snapped.

Not in a dramatic way.

In the "I could spend five minutes changing my theme... or six hours writing software so nobody can ask me this again" kind of way.

Guess which option I chose.

I opened the VS Code Extension API documentation.

The original plan was simple.

"What if I make an extension that just switches everything to black?"

Not a beautiful theme.

Not carefully designed colors.

Not accessibility.

Just...

Black.

If a pixel had the audacity to not be black, it was getting black.

Some people solve problems.

Developers automate them.

Some developers, however, automate them out of spite.

I belong to the second category.

By the end of the day, I had a working VS Code extension.

Instead of opening the Settings menu like a normal human being, I had created software whose sole purpose was to avoid touching the Settings menu ever again.

Peak engineering.

The funniest part wasn't building it.

It was publishing it.

Because once you've already spent hours making something incredibly unnecessary, uploading it to the Marketplace somehow feels like the logical next step.

At that point, you've already lost.

You might as well commit.

I like to imagine someone somewhere stumbling across my extension.

They're expecting some revolutionary productivity tool.

Maybe an AI assistant.

Maybe a debugger.

Instead they find...

An extension that exists because one guy's coworker asked a perfectly reasonable question.

Looking back, I probably could've just clicked:

Preferences → Theme → Dark

That would've taken about four seconds.

Instead, I wrote an extension, packaged it, published it, and now this ridiculous little story exists.

Honestly?

Worth it. Zero regrets.

Sometimes software isn't built because the world needs it.

Sometimes it's built because a developer is just petty enough to think,

"I'll show you."

Today, that extension has 45 installs.

I have absolutely no idea who those 45 people are.

Maybe someone genuinely wanted a darker theme.

Maybe someone clicked Install by accident.

Or maybe—just maybe—there are 44 other developers out there who heard,

"Why aren't you using dark mode?"

one too many times.

If you're one of them, know this:

You are seen.

I hope my unnecessarily published VS Code extension has empowered you to channel your pettiness into software.

Because sometimes the best code isn't written to solve a problem.

It's written to win an argument that nobody else even knew was happening.

In case you ever want to prove a point

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=stupidsherlock.realcoder

DEV Community: Taha

45 People Used Something I Built Out of Spite

In case you ever want to prove a point