Urbit: an operating function • Hacker News Board

Re: Urbit: an operating function

#171

Post by norswap » Sun, Sep 27, 2015, 5:29 PM UTC

I've always heard: do one thing and do it right. It's the Unix philosophy, before it was totally disregarded.

Urbit seems to take the total counterpoint of this advice, and I wonder whether it's a good idea.

What I don't get is what it is trying to achieve. The stated goal are too abstract. What are some use-cases? Is it really necessary to scrap the whole OS and languages to achieve these goals?

I do sympathize with the idea of rewriting everything from scratch, and I too feel that "almost everything is terrible" in software-land. But I doubt rewriting everything without having a firm grasp on the underlying issues is the way to go. It it a fun exercise, and inspiring besides, but I'm unsure it can be more than that.

Re: Urbit: an operating function

#172

Post by jpt4 » Sun, Sep 27, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

api wrote: post #168

csense wrote: post #31

The architecture is exciting. The problem is that the aesthetics of the tooling seems deliberately designed to alienate new users. For example the whitepaper gives new names to every punctuation symbol! And poking around the repo, there are gems like this: "A...variable name is a random pronounceable three-letter string, sometimes with some vague relationship to its meaning, but usually not..." "Nock, for mysterious…

The inversion of 0/1 for true/false is common in good C APIs. 0 as true and 1 as false makes a lot of sense from a perspective of error handling. 0 means everything's okay, while nonzero means it isn't. Various forms of nonzero can then represent different kinds of fail. Variations on this theme are common enough in programming that the inversion is reasonable, and it does no harm in the simple boolean case. The arch…

> it is not making any pretensions about not being new or about being a baby-step hack

And, with its Kelvin (count down to zero, then freeze forever) revisioning scheme, Urbit admits its own mortality (or so it seems to me). Any change that can not be managed as an intrasystemic, in place upgrade must necessarily - and righteously - detonate the Urbit ecosystem as thoroughly as mature Urbit obviates Unix. Future competitors are thereby encouraged to be equally generalist, thus hardening Urbit against dissolution via tepid, partial reforms.

Re: Urbit: an operating function

#173

Post by jpt4 » Sun, Sep 27, 2015, 7:33 PM UTC

eggy wrote: post #158

fiatjaf wrote: post #112

The aesthetics is what is making this thing possible. Thinking with the old words would not allow development of new things. I don't know if this is good or bad, but it is sincerely trying to do new things, so a new language is appropriate.

New things? Is Urbit based on Unix/Linux and the Von Neumann architecture? If so, it is just cosmetic coating on top of the same old foundation. I really like what's going on with people trying to create something like Urbit or old Lisp Machines on new hardware (not Von Neumann based). Interim OS, PilOS (PicoLisp on bare metal). I am still not sold on immutable data is the way forward either. I am reading a 1991 book…

For another Kogge devotee, see Loper OS: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=8

Re: Urbit: an operating function

#174

Post by eru » Mon, Sep 28, 2015, 8:01 AM UTC

api wrote: post #169

eru wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about not using numbers for Booleans?

CPUs grok numbers. This would be inefficient.

Oh, you can use numbers behind the scenes. Just make sure your type system hides the ugly truth.

Re: Urbit: an operating function

#175

Post by asdaqeqweq » Mon, Sep 28, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

_m19m wrote: post #147

This seems to come up at regular intervals. It's worth noting that the architects of this system are the "facist teenage Dungeon Master[s]" of http://thebaffler.com/blog/mouthbreathing-machiavellis

That doesn't seem worth noting.

Re: Urbit: an operating function

#176

Post by eggy » Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 5:49 AM UTC

jpt4 wrote: post #173

eggy wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New things? Is Urbit based on Unix/Linux and the Von Neumann architecture? If so, it is just cosmetic coating on top of the same old foundation. I really like what's going on with people trying to create something like Urbit or old Lisp Machines on new hardware (not Von Neumann based). Interim OS, PilOS (PicoLisp on bare metal). I am still not sold on immutable data is the way forward either. I am reading a 1991 book…

For another Kogge devotee, see Loper OS: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=8

Yes, I am familiar with his blog and writings. I would love to see what comes of Loper OS. He has examples of what he does for his day job - Lisp and robotics for one thing. He certainly puts his money where his mouth is, a very productive guy.

Re: Urbit: an operating function

#177

Post by nyan_sandwich » Wed, Sep 30, 2015, 3:36 AM UTC

david-given wrote: post #90

proveanegative wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urbit embodies Moldbug's politics. Speaking of politics, one of the most interesting practical user-facing things about Urbit that I saw in an earlier video demo was the user choosing his or her political affiliation when registering. The claimed affiliation then acts as a mandatory filter for political conversations. You can opt out of participating in any political discussion but not opt in to more than one camp. I…

Finding the video ( https://vimeo.com/75312418 ) I see that the four political associations are far-left, left, right, and far-right. Now I need to know where the Urbit developers are based, because how these terms are interpreted is very, very, very different depending what country you're in...

America. Far right is monarchism/fascism.