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9
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<div class="root">
<list dataPath="" dataPreview="true" dataType="post"></list>
# Log —
<list dataPath="" dataPreview="true" dataType="post"></list>
Please direct all questions or inquiries to [urbit@urbit.org](mailto:urbit@urbit.org). You can also subscribe to the [urbit-dev]() mailing list or follow [@urbit_]() on twitter.
</div>

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# Post 1
<div class="post">
# Technical demo — Part ii
<h2 class="sub">2015 07 16</h2>
<h2 class="sub">Curtis, Galen, Philip, Anton and Henry</h2>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/133395510?color=fff&title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div>

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# Post 2
<div class="post">
# Technical demo — Part i
<h2 class="sub">2015-07-17</h2>
<h2 class="sub">Curtis, Galen, Philip, Anton and Henry</h2>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/133395510?color=fff&title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</div>

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<div class="post">
# Concrete advantages of urbit
<h2 class="sub">2015-7-18</h2>
<h2 class="sub">Philip Monk</h2>
urbit is a cloud operating system and network designed
to replace the traditional Unix stack and permit the creating of
a personal cloud computing experience. It consists of an
operating system, arvo, written in a purely functional language,
hoon, run on a precisely defined virtual machine, nock.
Instances of arvo communicate over a P2P network, ames. Unix was
designed to solve the problems of the 1970's. Modern web apps
require a large set of services and abstractions not provided by
Unix. These are generally provided by the deep stack of third
party software that every app needs. urbit is a clean-slate
layer over the internet, and it provides services and
abstractions suitable for the development of modern web services.
A clean-slate programming platform must provide a series of
concrete wins over the current unix/internet platform, and we
enumerate some of them here. For technical overviews and
motivation, look elsewhere.
It is very difficult to build useful truly decentralized apps,
which is why it's so little done. We contend that a large
portion of this difficulty is accidental difficulty rather than
essential difficulty. Specifically, it is the result of building
these services on an operating system (Unix) and netowrk (TCP/IP)
designed and created in the 1970's to solve 1970's problems. A
multitude of good ideas have arisen in the last forty years, but
none of them were considered when our current software stack was
designed.
Consider a simple chat service built to modern standards. The
building blocks it needs are: (1) a browser front end, (2) a
protocol for sending and receiving data from the server, (3), a
transactional, ACID database (4) mappings from the data
structures in memory to the database format, (5) a way to verify
identity, and (6) some sort of way to manage reputation and
prevent spam.
Unix itself provides little help to the developer of this
service. These problems are solved by mixing and matching a
variety of third-party userspace solutions, each of which
provides a useful mostly-nonleaky abstraction. Putting together
and maintaining this stack is a company-sized problem.
More perniciously, even when the stack is put together and the
service is launched, this is a completely noncomposable,
centralized service. None of the parts of this service can be
used by other services, and if anyone wants to do something
similar, they'll need to wrangle the same type of stack.
Additionally, all the data for the app is on the company's
servers, so (1) the users have no privacy, (2) a security
breach at the company compromises everyone's data at once, and
(3) the users are unable to do anything with their data except
whatever the service's public interface allows.
The services and abstractions that Unix provides are far too low
level to properly service the modern web. urbit provides much
higher level services, and it provides them with decentralized
applications in mind.
Unix itself provides none of these, but there exist userspace
components for each. In general, the solutions up to this point
have been piecemeal -- a stack component here, a service there,
with a generous helping of glue to keep it all together.
We present urbit as a clean-slate solution to all of these
problems. Our thesis is that the best way to solve all these
problems is to do so in a coherent, cohesive whole. Rather than
a thin OS with a thick stack, we've built a thick OS to provide
high-level abstractions and services. By attacking these
problems from an OS perspective, we can deal with them
thoroughly.
## Identities.
Nearly every application needs a concept of identity. For many
cloud services, the only reason it needs to know the user's
identity is to show them their own data. In a decentralized
application, the user has their data on their own server, so
this problem goes away completely.
Many services, though, need a concept of identity that spans the
network. unix has usernames, and the internet has domains, but
these have nothing to do with each other. Each service ends up
having to construct its own notion of identity.
urbit has cryptographic identity built into the network. An
essentially infinite number of anonymous identities may be
created, but there are a finite number of paracentrally-issued
identities -- 2^32, to be exact. Because of the finite nature of
these identities (technically, addresses), they have nonzero
value, and thus may have positive default reputation.
Of course, if there are a finite number of identities, they must
be allocated somehow. In urbit, this is accomplished through a
simple hierarchy, with 256 top-level identity-issuing
authorities, each of which may issue tickets for 255 second-tier
urbits, each of which may issue tickets for 65,535 human-sized
urbits. Once an identity is issued, it cannot be revoked.
Lower-level urbits are independent entities, and the higher-level
urbit has no control over them. Even though identities are
*issued* paracentrally, the identity system is ultimately
decentralized.
## Transactional events.
urbit is a functional operating system, which means its state is
a deterministic function of its event history. We persist this
log before applying any effects, so events are fully
transactional. Either they happen or they don't, and we are
never left in an inconsistent state when a failure happens
mid-event. In the same way that databases guarantee consistency
of data storage, urbit guarantees the consistency of its state.
urbit is an ACID operating system.
Thus, urbit is a single-level store. There's no need for a
separate step to persist state. There is no need to write out
data to a filesystem to get persistence -- you can just leave
your data in the structures you use them in. All memory is
persistent by default.
## Global, reactive, typed, revision-controlled filesystem
urbit's filesystem is typed, so your data structures can be
stored directly -- no need to serialize. It's also
revision-controlled, so no need to lose file history ever again.
Even the revision-control is type-aware, so branching and merging
of arbitrary typed data structures works as it should. The
filesystem is global, so referring to files on other urbits is
easy. It's reactive, so changes on one machine can automatically
cause various effects, like recompiling code on other urbits and
auto-updating web pages.
## Type validation and conversion
urbit has a built-in framework for dealing with typed data
intelligently. This framework is used by the networking system
to validate typed data from the netowrk. It's used by the
filesystem to revision-control typed data. It's used by the web
server to convert your data structures to JSON or HTML before
sending them to a browser. With the built-in markdown-to-html
converter, combined with urbit's filesystem and web server,
hosting a blog on urbit can be as simple as keeping a directory
of markdown posts.
The only blanks you need to fill in are the specific conversion
functions to and from your application-defined types to more
standard ones (like JSON).
In a centralized system, it's usually the same software sending
and receiving data structures over the network. Thus, the
protocol is defined in English if you're lucky, else it's defined
by the implementation of the serializer and deserializer. In
urbit, since types are baked into the system, they are executable
specifications and are sent over the network in a consistent way,
so that as long as both sides have the same type definitions,
they can communicate.
## Updating code and data structures over time
Because urbit's filesystem is reactive, even across the network,
when an update is made to an app, it is usually pushed to
everyone's machines immediately. A commonly-cited benefit to
centralized systems is the ability to update everyone's
experience at once and without user intervention. urbit allows
a similar experience even in decentralized apps. Of course,
since the user has control over their own personal cloud server,
they may stop listening for code updates if they wish.
Besides distributing code, there is the problem of updating
running apps. In urbit, when the app's code changes we
automatically update the running app, saving the state and moving
it over to the new version of the app. If the app's data
structures have changed, then the programmer must write a state
adapter function, which gets automatically run. Thus, urbit
provides a sort of automatic hot code swapping with the ability
to simultaenously perform a "schema migration".
## Pulling data from other services
Since urbit is typed all the way through, communicating with
other applications and urbits is straightforward -- it's just
passing typed messages back and forth. It's a much more pleasant
experience than traditional web APIs. Remember, of course, that
the identity problem has already been solved, so it's just a
matter of asking for what you want, and the whole conversion
happens over a formally-defined protocol (a type really).
Often, pulling data just means reading it from the filesystem,
which, as previously mentioned, is global, revision-controlled,
and referentially transparent.
Overall, a lot less glue is required for apps to communicate. Of
course, the most important thing that eases interapp
communication is that urbit is a *personal* cloud computer, so
all the user's data is usually on their own urbit. No need to ask
some other company's servers for data and hope they're willing to
give it to you. Decentralization makes some things harder, but
it brings its own set of technical advantages.
## Decentralized ownership and computation.
Building truly decentralized apps and services is very difficult
in Unix, so it's not often attempted. Most cloud services are
centralized, with all the data on a single logical node (usually
spread across many physical servers). For most social
"networks", the networking is between rows in a database, not
computers on an actual network.
urbit eases the creation of decentralized apps. On the modern
web, these building blocks are supplied by centralized systems.
Verifying identity works by keeping all the identities in a
single, centralized database. We avoid validating typed data off
the wire by keeping all the data together in the same logical
server. We avoid the need for a global namespace by
centralization as well. Sane updating happens by keeping all the
software on a single set of servers managed by the company. When
we really can't get around the need to get data from another
service, we bite the bullet and deal with HTTP APIs.
Since urbit solves all these problems in a decentralized manner,
there's no longer near so much accidental difficulty in creating
decentralized apps.
In a world where personal cloud computers host decentralized
cloud services, the user finally owns their data. Having all
their data in one trusted place allows their apps to mix and
match it in hitherto unimagined ways. The privacy and security
benefits are immense as well.
But perhaps greatest of all is the new frontiers this opens up.
When Unix was built, a few rudimentary tools were built into the
system, and with them programmers have built incredible pieces of
software and accomplished things the creators couldn't have
dreamed of. Unix provided the best tools the 1970's could offer,
and it changed the world.
Imagine what will happen when the current generation of
programmers gets a new set of tools, built to incorporate the
last four decades of research and hard-won experience. We
believe it will usher in an era of unprecedented increase in the
power, privacy, and security available to the end user.
</div>

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@ -376,6 +376,17 @@ li:before {
.list.posts li.post:before {
content: "";
}
div.root h1 {
margin-bottom: 2rem;
}
div.root .list .sub {
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0.6rem;
}
div.root > p {
width: 27rem;
margin-top: 2rem;
}
div.post h1 {
font-size: 2.8rem;
line-height: 4rem;
@ -388,6 +399,9 @@ div.post h2.sub {
line-height: 1rem;
letter-spacing: 1px;
}
div.post h2 {
margin-top: 4rem;
}
div.post h2.sub {
font-size: 0.7rem;
font-weight: 400;

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@ -302,6 +302,18 @@ li:before
li.post:before
content ""
div.root
h1
margin-bottom 2rem
.list .sub
margin-left 0
margin-right .6rem
div.root > p
width 27rem
margin-top 2rem
div.post
h1
font-size 2.8rem
@ -315,6 +327,9 @@ div.post
line-height 1rem
letter-spacing 1px
h2
margin-top 4rem
h2.sub
font-size .7rem
font-weight 400

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@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
(function e(t,n,r){function s(o,u){if(!n[o]){if(!t[o]){var a=typeof require=="function"&&require;if(!u&&a)return a(o,!0);if(i)return i(o,!0);var f=new Error("Cannot find module '"+o+"'");throw f.code="MODULE_NOT_FOUND",f}var l=n[o]={exports:{}};t[o][0].call(l.exports,function(e){var n=t[o][1][e];return s(n?n:e)},l,l.exports,e,t,n,r)}return n[o].exports}var i=typeof require=="function"&&require;for(var o=0;o<r.length;o++)s(r[o]);return s})({1:[function(require,module,exports){
(function e(t,n,r){function s(o,u){if(!n[o]){if(!t[o]){var a=typeof require=="function"&&require;if(!u&&a)return a(o,!0);if(i)return i(o,!0);var f=new Error("Cannot find module '"+o+"'");throw f.code="MODULE_NOT_FOUND",f}var l=n[o]={exports:{}};t[o][0].call(l.exports,function(e){var n=t[o][1][e];return s(n?n:e)},l,l.exports,e,t,n,r)}return n[o].exports}var i=typeof require=="function"&&require;for(var o=0;o<r.length;o++)s(r[o]);return s})({"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/actions/TreeActions.coffee":[function(require,module,exports){
var TreeDispatcher, TreePersistence;
TreeDispatcher = require('../dispatcher/Dispatcher.coffee');
@ -71,7 +71,8 @@ module.exports = {
};
},{"../dispatcher/Dispatcher.coffee":8,"../persistence/TreePersistence.coffee":13}],2:[function(require,module,exports){
},{"../dispatcher/Dispatcher.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/dispatcher/Dispatcher.coffee","../persistence/TreePersistence.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/persistence/TreePersistence.coffee"}],"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/AnchorComponent.coffee":[function(require,module,exports){
var BodyComponent, TreeActions, TreeStore, a, div, recl, ref;
BodyComponent = require('./BodyComponent.coffee');
@ -310,7 +311,8 @@ module.exports = recl({
});
},{"../actions/TreeActions.coffee":1,"../stores/TreeStore.coffee":14,"./BodyComponent.coffee":3}],3:[function(require,module,exports){
},{"../actions/TreeActions.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/actions/TreeActions.coffee","../stores/TreeStore.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/stores/TreeStore.coffee","./BodyComponent.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/BodyComponent.coffee"}],"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/BodyComponent.coffee":[function(require,module,exports){
var TreeActions, TreeStore, div, input, load, recl, ref, textarea;
TreeStore = require('../stores/TreeStore.coffee');
@ -377,7 +379,8 @@ module.exports = recl({
});
},{"../actions/TreeActions.coffee":1,"../stores/TreeStore.coffee":14,"./LoadComponent.coffee":7}],4:[function(require,module,exports){
},{"../actions/TreeActions.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/actions/TreeActions.coffee","../stores/TreeStore.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/stores/TreeStore.coffee","./LoadComponent.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/LoadComponent.coffee"}],"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/CodeMirror.coffee":[function(require,module,exports){
var div, recl, ref, textarea;
recl = React.createClass;
@ -400,7 +403,8 @@ module.exports = recl({
});
},{}],5:[function(require,module,exports){
},{}],"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/KidsComponent.coffee":[function(require,module,exports){
var TreeActions, TreeStore, a, div, hr, li, recl, ref, ul;
TreeStore = require('../stores/TreeStore.coffee');
@ -466,7 +470,8 @@ module.exports = recl({
});
},{"../actions/TreeActions.coffee":1,"../stores/TreeStore.coffee":14}],6:[function(require,module,exports){
},{"../actions/TreeActions.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/actions/TreeActions.coffee","../stores/TreeStore.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/stores/TreeStore.coffee"}],"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/ListComponent.coffee":[function(require,module,exports){
var TreeActions, TreeStore, a, div, h1, li, load, recl, ref, ul;
TreeStore = require('../stores/TreeStore.coffee');
@ -586,7 +591,8 @@ module.exports = recl({
});
},{"../actions/TreeActions.coffee":1,"../stores/TreeStore.coffee":14,"./LoadComponent.coffee":7}],7:[function(require,module,exports){
},{"../actions/TreeActions.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/actions/TreeActions.coffee","../stores/TreeStore.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/stores/TreeStore.coffee","./LoadComponent.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/LoadComponent.coffee"}],"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/LoadComponent.coffee":[function(require,module,exports){
var div, input, recl, ref, textarea;
recl = React.createClass;
@ -623,7 +629,8 @@ module.exports = recl({
});
},{}],8:[function(require,module,exports){
},{}],"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/dispatcher/Dispatcher.coffee":[function(require,module,exports){
var Dispatcher;
Dispatcher = require('flux').Dispatcher;
@ -644,7 +651,8 @@ module.exports = _.extend(new Dispatcher(), {
});
},{"flux":10}],9:[function(require,module,exports){
},{"flux":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/node_modules/flux/index.js"}],"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/main.coffee":[function(require,module,exports){
var rend;
rend = React.render;
@ -814,7 +822,8 @@ $(function() {
});
},{"./actions/TreeActions.coffee":1,"./components/AnchorComponent.coffee":2,"./components/BodyComponent.coffee":3,"./components/CodeMirror.coffee":4,"./components/KidsComponent.coffee":5,"./components/ListComponent.coffee":6,"./persistence/TreePersistence.coffee":13}],10:[function(require,module,exports){
},{"./actions/TreeActions.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/actions/TreeActions.coffee","./components/AnchorComponent.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/AnchorComponent.coffee","./components/BodyComponent.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/BodyComponent.coffee","./components/CodeMirror.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/CodeMirror.coffee","./components/KidsComponent.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/KidsComponent.coffee","./components/ListComponent.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/components/ListComponent.coffee","./persistence/TreePersistence.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/persistence/TreePersistence.coffee"}],"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/node_modules/flux/index.js":[function(require,module,exports){
/**
* Copyright (c) 2014-2015, Facebook, Inc.
* All rights reserved.
@ -826,7 +835,7 @@ $(function() {
module.exports.Dispatcher = require('./lib/Dispatcher')
},{"./lib/Dispatcher":11}],11:[function(require,module,exports){
},{"./lib/Dispatcher":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/node_modules/flux/lib/Dispatcher.js"}],"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/node_modules/flux/lib/Dispatcher.js":[function(require,module,exports){
/*
* Copyright (c) 2014, Facebook, Inc.
* All rights reserved.
@ -1078,7 +1087,7 @@ var _prefix = 'ID_';
module.exports = Dispatcher;
},{"./invariant":12}],12:[function(require,module,exports){
},{"./invariant":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/node_modules/flux/lib/invariant.js"}],"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/node_modules/flux/lib/invariant.js":[function(require,module,exports){
/**
* Copyright (c) 2014, Facebook, Inc.
* All rights reserved.
@ -1133,7 +1142,7 @@ var invariant = function(condition, format, a, b, c, d, e, f) {
module.exports = invariant;
},{}],13:[function(require,module,exports){
},{}],"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/persistence/TreePersistence.coffee":[function(require,module,exports){
var TreeActions;
TreeActions = require('../actions/TreeActions.coffee');
@ -1154,7 +1163,8 @@ module.exports = {
};
},{"../actions/TreeActions.coffee":1}],14:[function(require,module,exports){
},{"../actions/TreeActions.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/actions/TreeActions.coffee"}],"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/stores/TreeStore.coffee":[function(require,module,exports){
var EventEmitter, MessageDispatcher, TreeStore, _cont, _curr, _load, _snip, _tree;
EventEmitter = require('events').EventEmitter;
@ -1394,7 +1404,8 @@ TreeStore.dispatchToken = MessageDispatcher.register(function(payload) {
module.exports = TreeStore;
},{"../dispatcher/Dispatcher.coffee":8,"events":15}],15:[function(require,module,exports){
},{"../dispatcher/Dispatcher.coffee":"/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/dispatcher/Dispatcher.coffee","events":"/usr/local/lib/node_modules/watchify/node_modules/browserify/node_modules/events/events.js"}],"/usr/local/lib/node_modules/watchify/node_modules/browserify/node_modules/events/events.js":[function(require,module,exports){
// Copyright Joyent, Inc. and other Node contributors.
//
// Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
@ -1454,8 +1465,10 @@ EventEmitter.prototype.emit = function(type) {
er = arguments[1];
if (er instanceof Error) {
throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
} else {
throw TypeError('Uncaught, unspecified "error" event.');
}
throw TypeError('Uncaught, unspecified "error" event.');
return false;
}
}
@ -1697,4 +1710,4 @@ function isUndefined(arg) {
return arg === void 0;
}
},{}]},{},[9]);
},{}]},{},["/Users/galen/src/urbit-dev/urb/zod/pub/tree/src/js/main.coffee"]);