5 ms·

Urbit sample apps

38 points by mntmn 12y ago

akhilcacharya 12y ago
Oh dear, isn't this Mencius Moldbug's startup?
- agilebyte 12y ago
  Yes, for anyone interested: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  Yes, which is one of the a whole host of other reasons to stay away from this. Urbit openly states that it has backdoors in place to allow policing by any government.
  - fiatmoney 12y ago
    Source?
    - state 12y ago
      https://github.com/urbit/urbit https://github.com/urbit/urbit
      - fiatmoney 12y ago
        You really have to be more specific for such a strong claim. Especially when it's qualified by "openly states". I call bullshit.
        juped 12y ago
        The actual source is this blog post http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2013/12/a-brief-introduction-to-urbit.html http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2013/12/a-brief-int... , which has mutated over time into "full of backdoors", apparently. As for the original statement from that post, the creator of Urbit "definitely would not endorse" it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8581416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8581416
Igglyboo 12y ago
I've been seeing this off and on for about a year now and I still have no idea if this is legit or some long-con troll type thing. Anyone care to shed some light on it?
- fiatmoney 12y ago
  It's a "troll" of computer scientists in roughly the same way that Bitcoin is a troll of economists.
  - lisper 12y ago
    Urbit is postmodern computer science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism). It is not intended to be a troll, but it is intended to be deliberately obscure so that only the elites will "get it". My personal opinion is that the emperor has no clothes, but I wouldn't bet my entire life savings on it. Curtis is crazy, but he's not an idiot.
    - pcmonk 12y ago
      Urbit is not intended to be deliberately obscure. Communication is hard, especially with such radically new ideas. That's why we're building this repository, to lower the barrier to entry. Urbit is vast and new and often difficult to comprehend, but if there's any way we can help you guys understand it, let us know.
      - jsprogrammer 12y ago
        I'm not sure it's radically new. Our machines only know one basic language and Urbit is an extension of that.
      - lisper 12y ago
        > Urbit is not intended to be deliberately obscure. Well, you sure fooled me. > Communication is hard, especially with such radically new ideas. No, it's actually not. You start with a description of the problem you're trying to solve. Then you go on to explain why existing solutions don't solve it. Then you describe your solution, and what it is about your solution that solves the problem where previous attempts have failed. It's really quite straightforward. If you can't do it, that's a pretty good indication that you don't actually understand what you're doing. > if there's any way we can help you guys understand it, let us know A white paper would help a lot. But since you asked, here are a few specific questions: 1. What problem is Urbit supposed to solve? 2. What is the benefit of reinventing computer science from the ground up with nock and hoon? Why not start from an established base like C or Lisp or Scheme or Haskell or even the lambda calculus if you want to be purists about it? (Surely someone on the Urbit team has heard of Turing-equivalence?) 3. If your intention is not to be obscure, why do you employ overwhelmingly obscure terminology and punctuation? Why do you use ultra-short identifiers in your code? At a casual browse I can't find even one identifier in your code longer than five characters. (You do know that you can get more than 640k of RAM nowadays, yes?) I'm sorry for the snark, but I find Urbit incredibly frustrating. Curtis is very smart, which is pretty much the only reason that I don't just come right out and call shenanigans. But Urbit has been pegging my bogometer for a very long time.
mjfl 12y ago
what is urbit?
- rgbrgb 12y ago
  It's an operating system: https://github.com/urbit/urbit https://github.com/urbit/urbit
mdonahoe 12y ago
Reading this is so strange feeling. Its like weird science fiction or something where many of the important words are made up, but the rest is normal English. urbit ship vane hoon! At least math is the same.
nfoz 12y ago
According to http://urbit.org/ http://urbit.org/, Urbit is unlaunched and doesn't especially appreciate tons of attention quite yet.

Urbit sample apps

38 points by mntmn 12y ago

akhilcacharya 12y ago

Oh dear, isn't this Mencius Moldbug's startup?

agilebyte 12y ago
Yes, for anyone interested: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement
Igglyboo 12y ago
Yes, which is one of the a whole host of other reasons to stay away from this. Urbit openly states that it has backdoors in place to allow policing by any government.
- fiatmoney 12y ago
  Source?
  - state 12y ago
    https://github.com/urbit/urbit https://github.com/urbit/urbit
    - fiatmoney 12y ago
      You really have to be more specific for such a strong claim. Especially when it's qualified by "openly states". I call bullshit.
      - juped 12y ago
        The actual source is this blog post http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2013/12/a-brief-introduction-to-urbit.html http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2013/12/a-brief-int... , which has mutated over time into "full of backdoors", apparently. As for the original statement from that post, the creator of Urbit "definitely would not endorse" it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8581416 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8581416

Igglyboo 12y ago

I've been seeing this off and on for about a year now and I still have no idea if this is legit or some long-con troll type thing. Anyone care to shed some light on it?

fiatmoney 12y ago
It's a "troll" of computer scientists in roughly the same way that Bitcoin is a troll of economists.
- lisper 12y ago
  Urbit is postmodern computer science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism). It is not intended to be a troll, but it is intended to be deliberately obscure so that only the elites will "get it". My personal opinion is that the emperor has no clothes, but I wouldn't bet my entire life savings on it. Curtis is crazy, but he's not an idiot.
  - pcmonk 12y ago
    Urbit is not intended to be deliberately obscure. Communication is hard, especially with such radically new ideas. That's why we're building this repository, to lower the barrier to entry. Urbit is vast and new and often difficult to comprehend, but if there's any way we can help you guys understand it, let us know.
    - jsprogrammer 12y ago
      I'm not sure it's radically new. Our machines only know one basic language and Urbit is an extension of that.
    - lisper 12y ago
      > Urbit is not intended to be deliberately obscure. Well, you sure fooled me. > Communication is hard, especially with such radically new ideas. No, it's actually not. You start with a description of the problem you're trying to solve. Then you go on to explain why existing solutions don't solve it. Then you describe your solution, and what it is about your solution that solves the problem where previous attempts have failed. It's really quite straightforward. If you can't do it, that's a pretty good indication that you don't actually understand what you're doing. > if there's any way we can help you guys understand it, let us know A white paper would help a lot. But since you asked, here are a few specific questions: 1. What problem is Urbit supposed to solve? 2. What is the benefit of reinventing computer science from the ground up with nock and hoon? Why not start from an established base like C or Lisp or Scheme or Haskell or even the lambda calculus if you want to be purists about it? (Surely someone on the Urbit team has heard of Turing-equivalence?) 3. If your intention is not to be obscure, why do you employ overwhelmingly obscure terminology and punctuation? Why do you use ultra-short identifiers in your code? At a casual browse I can't find even one identifier in your code longer than five characters. (You do know that you can get more than 640k of RAM nowadays, yes?) I'm sorry for the snark, but I find Urbit incredibly frustrating. Curtis is very smart, which is pretty much the only reason that I don't just come right out and call shenanigans. But Urbit has been pegging my bogometer for a very long time.

mjfl 12y ago

what is urbit?

rgbrgb 12y ago
It's an operating system: https://github.com/urbit/urbit https://github.com/urbit/urbit

mdonahoe 12y ago

Reading this is so strange feeling. Its like weird science fiction or something where many of the important words are made up, but the rest is normal English. urbit ship vane hoon! At least math is the same.

nfoz 12y ago

According to http://urbit.org/ http://urbit.org/, Urbit is unlaunched and doesn't especially appreciate tons of attention quite yet.