New Interfaces

The past few months have seen the release of new versions of Landscape, the interface that ships with most Urbit builds, as well as the desktop application Scene from Tirrel, and the alpha of Realm from Holium.

These ‘interfaces’ are like Linux distributions; they utilize Urbit’s core and include additional features to enhance their functionality. As Urbit continues to develop, we can expect more interfaces, and as a developer it’s important to think about what type of Urbit interface offers you useful functionality and integration opportunities.

Spotted in the Wild

Scooore
~paldev/scooore
“leaderboard for groups' ['o']s, as seen on tv!”

Urdl
~dister-dozzod-dalten
“better than wrdu by at least one letter.”

Urbit x Encode Hackathon

The Encode Urbit hackathon yielded some strong new contenders.

The prizewinning lineup:

• Best User Experience: Conway’s Game of Life, the classic game
  ~tiller-tolbus and ~rabsef-bicrym
  

• Best De-Fi Integration: Collective, create investment clubs on Urbit
  ~pontus-fadpun and ~hodreb-racdem
  

• Best Web2 Bridge: Tome DB, a key–value database
  ~larryx-woldyr

  • Subsequent development has led to Tome DB serving as a backend for JS-only Urbit applications.
    

• Best in Show: Pantheon, an IPFS client for image sharing over Slate
  ~sydnym-ladrut, ~litleb-nybbyt,and ~tamlut-modnys
  

• Honorable Mention: Urbipedia, a collective encyclopedia app using the Zettelkasten method
  

Other entrants included:

• %focus, an interval timer

  ~nordus-mocwyl
  

• Realtime, a chat app that shows all typing, based on %hut

  ~novrul-falfen
  

• Urbytes, a Twitter-like microblogging system

  pneumatick
  

• GroundSeg, a client for managing ships

  Native Planet

Core Development

Things have been happening fast. Tlon has announced their intention to focus on Groups and the related tool suite, and Urbit Foundation is in the process of managing core development and releases. Highlights of this process include:

• The monorepo of Urbit code has now been split into the urbit/urbit (Arvo) and urbit/vere (runtime) repositories.

• The pace of releases has moved to weekly. This means that pull requests are being evaluated almost daily for progress, and will move quickly into release. Check the contributors guide to both of the main repos for further details, including the bleeding-edge source moons for developers:

  • https://github.com/urbit/vere/blob/develop/CONTRIBUTING.md

  • https://github.com/urbit/urbit/blob/develop/CONTRIBUTING.md

Because of this increase in pace, we will drop the “Upcoming PRs” section from this newsletter. You’re liable to see it in production before we can get it to press!

Current and upcoming tasks on the Urbit Roadmap include rolling out solid-state subscriptions, kelvin shims, and event log truncation. Also watch for 8GB loom and userspace permissioning soon.

Jobs

• Dalten Collective is working on a decentralized reputation system called New Aera: ~dalten/aera

• The Volcano Summit, a dedicated development-focused conference, is taking place next month in El Salvador. If you’re attending, we’ll see you there!