What should you do after Hoon School? Well, presumably you've become interested in building apps on Urbit, and certainly knowing the language is a prerequisite. But apps require knowing the platform as a platform—what system services and affordances exist, how to hook up a front-end user interface, and how to build apps that interoperate with each other. What will it take to (metaphorically) terraform Mars?
The Urbit Foundation offered Hoon School Live as a reboot of previous live Hoon educational efforts, including Hooniversity and Hoon 101. HSL consisted of synchronous livestream sessions, homework, and office hours, and concluded with a competition (on the results of which more soon). 61 participants completed HSL and received finisher %gorae.
In July, the Urbit Foundation will follow up HSL with App School Live, another synchronous cohort class based on the App School guides (formerly known as the Gall Guides). We will cover the structure of an Urbit backend app, Urbit OS system calls, app coordination across multiple ships, how to build a front-end, and more.
Most—but not all—Urbit app development has focused thus far on social media and cryptocurrency applications. This makes sense, and it's a strength of the current Urbit platform primitives. But so much more is possible: games, of course, but also life management, instrumentation, CLIs, data visualization, and so forth. With Urbit's peer-to-peer distribution system, there are no gatekeepers, and anyone can start their own app store.
At the same time as ASL, the Urbit Foundation is holding a hackathon with prizes to be unveiled at Assembly Miami. We're excited to see what you're going to build. If you're not sure how to produce your vision yet, start with App School Live and then peruse the submissions for current grant projects to see how others are successfully building apps.
If you are interested in participating in App School Live, drop us a line at this registration form or join us on Mars at ~hiddev-dannut/new-hooniverse. We'll start on Tuesday, July 12 and run through August 23.