Comment by mikewarot

On most computer systems these days can select a set of files and folders and tell the computer to "Send to compressed file", the files that come out of that process usually end in ".zip", and are thus known as "zip files"

This is a zip file, like any other... you can add and remove things from it. However, this ZIP file has a superpower, it can display the contents on the web... it has a web server built into it.

You can take this file, run it on a Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and it will work. You don't need separate versions for each different system... this just works on all three systems, unlike almost every program ever written.

This is one of the most impressive feats of programming things I've seen in my 40+ years of programming. The web serving is clever, but the superpower that it can run on anything really took a huge amount of work, which the author built into a tool called "ape", and has shared with the world, so other people can use it, and help her make it better.