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A serverless framework with very interesting theoretical properties and a wide variety of plausible applications. The urbit.org site has a nice primer and video

A serverless framework with very interesting theoretical properties and a wide variety of plausible applications. The urbit.org site has a nice primer and video introduction.

devmunchies 8y ago
why is this being downvoted? i have no idea what urbit was and this was the only helpful, non-political comment in this thread.
- yebyen 8y ago
  These (handful of) Urbit threads are the only place I see this happen on HN. People here just hate him. The last time I was in one of these threads, it was "no platform for fascists." Now that he's leaving, I wonder what the angle is supposed to be? And... it's flagged off the front page!
  - nyolfen 8y ago
    this is probably a major part of why he's leaving, so his presence can't be used as ammo by detractors. it always seemed like a major weak point for the project to me; you can tell they've been trying very hard to avoid any related subject in interviews etc
    - yebyen 8y ago
      So, maybe a minor victory this was flagged? I don't think that, but it is what it is? (I think the post is great, I've only read 2/3 of it, but pretty on message. Feel like I only just got to the technical part...)
- theamk 8y ago
  because it is factually incorrect? The system is not "serverless", it is just the opposite -- it is a "personal server", an application you have to run. To quote the primer, > Most people park their ship in the cloud. If you prefer to host yourself, your ship can live on a laptop, a phone, even a USB stick. (yes, "park your ship" means "store and run your file" in urbit)
geofft 8y ago
How is it a "serverless framework"? I understand that phrase to mean things like Amazon Lambda where a large company executes small processes for you and you don't have to manage servers. Isn't Urbit the opposite, that you have to manage a (quite involved) server, and that's a good thing?
- nyolfen 8y ago
  the idea is that you eventually don't have to manage it once it's a mature system, but it's early days and currently a pretty involved process. serverless is also probably the wrong term since the usual description is 'personal server.'
  - yebyen 8y ago
    Serverless is pretty overloaded at this point, there are serverless frameworks that require first you must get a cluster of Kubernetes nodes. They're still serverless, by plenty of definitions that I find credible. They don't require a persistent server process per application or per endpoint. I'm talking about Knative Serving namely, but really any framework that stands up infrastructure in front of you as you request it, and tears it down behind you as you've momentarily finished with using it, I would consider definitely meets the most common definition of serverless. That being said, Urbit as a Serverless framework, I think is a pretty big stretch.

A serverless framework with very interesting theoretical properties and a wide variety of plausible applications. The urbit.org site has a nice primer and video introduction.

devmunchies 8y ago

why is this being downvoted? i have no idea what urbit was and this was the only helpful, non-political comment in this thread.

yebyen 8y ago
These (handful of) Urbit threads are the only place I see this happen on HN. People here just hate him. The last time I was in one of these threads, it was "no platform for fascists." Now that he's leaving, I wonder what the angle is supposed to be? And... it's flagged off the front page!
- nyolfen 8y ago
  this is probably a major part of why he's leaving, so his presence can't be used as ammo by detractors. it always seemed like a major weak point for the project to me; you can tell they've been trying very hard to avoid any related subject in interviews etc
  - yebyen 8y ago
    So, maybe a minor victory this was flagged? I don't think that, but it is what it is? (I think the post is great, I've only read 2/3 of it, but pretty on message. Feel like I only just got to the technical part...)
theamk 8y ago
because it is factually incorrect? The system is not "serverless", it is just the opposite -- it is a "personal server", an application you have to run. To quote the primer, > Most people park their ship in the cloud. If you prefer to host yourself, your ship can live on a laptop, a phone, even a USB stick. (yes, "park your ship" means "store and run your file" in urbit)

geofft 8y ago

How is it a "serverless framework"? I understand that phrase to mean things like Amazon Lambda where a large company executes small processes for you and you don't have to manage servers. Isn't Urbit the opposite, that you have to manage a (quite involved) server, and that's a good thing?

nyolfen 8y ago
the idea is that you eventually don't have to manage it once it's a mature system, but it's early days and currently a pretty involved process. serverless is also probably the wrong term since the usual description is 'personal server.'
- yebyen 8y ago
  Serverless is pretty overloaded at this point, there are serverless frameworks that require first you must get a cluster of Kubernetes nodes. They're still serverless, by plenty of definitions that I find credible. They don't require a persistent server process per application or per endpoint. I'm talking about Knative Serving namely, but really any framework that stands up infrastructure in front of you as you request it, and tears it down behind you as you've momentarily finished with using it, I would consider definitely meets the most common definition of serverless. That being said, Urbit as a Serverless framework, I think is a pretty big stretch.