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Urbit: A clean-slate functional OS

urbit.org

31–40 of 185 posts

Re: Urbit: A clean-slate functional OS

#31
post #8

A better link would be the front page: http://www.urbit.org/ I guess on the Internets, you never release anything - it's released for you. Please be warned, (a) the doc is incomplete, (b) if you create an Urbit ship you'll eventually have to destroy it, as we don't have continuity yet.

Watching the video blew my brains out the back of my head. Figuratively of course. Thanks for not letting me get anything productive done for the rest of the day.

Re: Urbit: A clean-slate functional OS

#32

For a project ostensibly inspired by K&R C, the copy on this site is amazingly opaque and full of its own rhetoric. Recommendation: delete all the linguistic posturing and get down to the hard work of casting light on your ideas. Let that speak for itself. By way of example, the K&R C book had a beautiful clarity and ability to fluidly move between the realms of reference, spec, and tutorial. If you're going to hold…

It seems like Urbit is art for art's sake. The fact that it executes is a side benefit.

(Oops, fyolnish beat me to it.)

Re: Urbit: A clean-slate functional OS

#33

For a project ostensibly inspired by K&R C, the copy on this site is amazingly opaque and full of its own rhetoric. Recommendation: delete all the linguistic posturing and get down to the hard work of casting light on your ideas. Let that speak for itself. By way of example, the K&R C book had a beautiful clarity and ability to fluidly move between the realms of reference, spec, and tutorial. If you're going to hold…

That's an excellent criticism. Of course the problem is exacerbated by the HN link pointing to the philosophy doc. The greatest philosophy is to have no philosophy at all, but perhaps we're not quite there yet.

Actually the K&R equivalent for Hoon doesn't exist yet, and when it does it will be the first thing to read. Since it doesn't, the Arvo tutorial is the first thing to read:

http://www.urbit.org/2013/08/22/Chapter-1-arvo.html

But this itself is incomplete. Watch the video first:

http://www.urbit.org

Then build Arvo and use the sekrit code it generates to, basically, subscribe to our newsletter.

It's just a bad idea to document anything before it works completely, because you end up with doc that validates this criticism. The right way to build a language is to build it, use it, get comfortable with it, actually master it and become an expert of sorts... then document it. Sadly, not too many of us can live up to this ideal.

Re: Urbit: A clean-slate functional OS

#35
post #17
post #6

I was with you til you introduced the Hoon syntax. Why ruin a great concept with a shit language? WHAT IS WRONG WITH LANGUAGE DESIGNERS?! Just come up with a sane language with a sane syntax on a great platform. This is apparently asking a lot. It's not fucking rocket science.

I agree entirely! This is so much better than the typical "middlebrow dismissive" that I upvoted it... And actually, if you don't like Hoon you can build your own language on this platform. So long as it compiles to Nock. You'll probably have to write your first compiler in Hoon, but we do have pretty decent combinator parsers. If you can swallow the syntax...

I like that you upvote your critics. That amuses me greatly. I had not viewed the video before I made my first comment but after watching the video I'm impressed with your implementation and solid practical concepts, but I still abhor your Hoon syntax. I haven't looked into Nock yet but I have a feeling I might knock its syntax as well, pun intended.

Re: Urbit: A clean-slate functional OS

#36
post #20
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lame qn but does the name Albert Jay Nock have anything to do with 'Nock'?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Jay_Nock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_at_the_Palaz_of_Hoon Four-letter names that haven't been overexposed are hard to find. But four letters fits in a 32-bit direct atom, so the attraction is pretty irresistible.

Nothing to do with Frank Key's absurdist narrative "Ascent of the Mountain at Hoon", then? http://hootingyard.org/archives/9019

Re: Urbit: A clean-slate functional OS

#38
post #33

For a project ostensibly inspired by K&R C, the copy on this site is amazingly opaque and full of its own rhetoric. Recommendation: delete all the linguistic posturing and get down to the hard work of casting light on your ideas. Let that speak for itself. By way of example, the K&R C book had a beautiful clarity and ability to fluidly move between the realms of reference, spec, and tutorial. If you're going to hold…

That's an excellent criticism. Of course the problem is exacerbated by the HN link pointing to the philosophy doc. The greatest philosophy is to have no philosophy at all, but perhaps we're not quite there yet. Actually the K&R equivalent for Hoon doesn't exist yet, and when it does it will be the first thing to read. Since it doesn't, the Arvo tutorial is the first thing to read: http://www.urbit.org/2013/08/22/Chap…

I for one love the whimsy. We need more LearnYouaThings and Shoes and runtimes that spit out lovecraftian quotes...

Re: Urbit: A clean-slate functional OS

#39
post #29
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To build your startup? No. To have fun? Why not.

I should rephrase my question: on what technology platforms would one use Nock and Hoon? Embedded systems? Anything (due to "portability")?

You are still missing the point. They wrote it because it looked like fun. It's not targeting a business problem as such it's more like it's scratching the "This looks like fun" itch.

Could it maybe be used for something sure. But that doesn't have to be the motivation of the authors.

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