
Urbit sample apps - mntmn
https://github.com/urbit/sample-apps
======
Igglyboo
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
It's a "troll" of computer scientists in roughly the same way that Bitcoin is
a troll of economists.

~~~
lisper
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
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.

~~~
lisper
> 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.

~~~
pavlov
_At a casual browse I can 't find even one identifier in your code longer than
five characters._

I found an identifier named "sivtyv-barnel", so apparently six-letter words
are also allowed as long as the resulting name sounds like a Norwegian
actress.

~~~
lisper
Maybe they're using the Travoltifier:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/low_concept/2014/03/john_...](http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/low_concept/2014/03/john_travolta_called_idina_menzel_adele_dazeem_what_s_your_travolta_name.html)

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

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

~~~
Igglyboo
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
Source?

~~~
state
[https://github.com/urbit/urbit](https://github.com/urbit/urbit)

~~~
fiatmoney
You really have to be more specific for such a strong claim. Especially when
it's qualified by "openly states". I call bullshit.

~~~
juped
The actual source is this blog post
[http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2013/12/a-brief-
int...](http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2013/12/a-brief-introduction-
to-urbit.html) , 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)

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mdonahoe
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.

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mjfl
what is urbit?

~~~
rgbrgb
It's an operating system:
[https://github.com/urbit/urbit](https://github.com/urbit/urbit)

