Welcome to our monthly roundup! July has been a busy month for us, packed with testing on the Holo hosting network, refreshing our website, and a Holochain release.
Holo Hosted Elemental Chat in a Browser
We have reached an important point for Holo as we progress towards the release of the hosting platform. The Pre-Release test of Hosted Elemental Chat continues successfully with more than 200 peers chatting across the world. Messages arrive quickly and participants report a real-time chat experience using the app. Elemental Chat is testing the end-to-end infrastructure of a peer-to-peer Holochain application being hosted by the peer-to-peer Holo hosting network. This demonstrates potentially massive new possibilities on the web.
The HoloPort Alpha Program
At this stage, Holo is looking to set up parallel test environments which require consistent support from hundreds of HoloPorts. This will better reflect how the infrastructure and applications will work when running at scale on the platform. Creating multiple test environments helps our development and QA efforts and is especially needed for the upcoming release of hosted Elemental Chat, as well as the subsequent Holo application milestones.
Participants in the HoloPort Alpha Program can choose to volunteer their HoloPort or receive a small stipend in HoloFuel based on meeting the minimum metrics each month. The reason we are offering this stipend now is because as we move forward, it is critical that the HoloPorts remain turned on and connected to the Internet while we are testing.
Holochain v0.0.101 released
The core dev team has released a new version of Holochain this week. It comes with a huge pile of changes (v0.0.100 was released in February, after all, and the develop branch has been changing fast since then). Here are some of the updates:
- The storage engine has moved from LMDB to SQLite in preparation for sharded storage and the immune system.
- Network traffic for entry publishing has been throttled back to avoid flooding the network.
- The gossip algorithm no longer floods the network on each received operation, moving instead to a slow loop.
- Wasmer, the WebAssembly engine Holochain uses to run hApps, has been updated to version 2.
Read the full change log.
Three Holo Networks (and our 100th DevPulse)!
As we roll out the HoloPort Alpha Program, the Holo hosting dev team will assign all hosts to one of three test networks. The Holo devs are describing this as a huge improvement in their ability to test changes — not only does it contain bugs, but it also vastly simplifies our testing and deployment setup. Each network can be deployed automatically — from the HoloPort, through the centralised infrastructure, to the scripts that run in the user’s browser. These are the kinds of quality assurance upgrades we need right now as we prepare for public alpha testing.
Regular Holo Dev Updates on Twitter
If you are curious about the — hot from the press dev updates — those can be found on Holo Twitter.
Blockchain: A Holochain Perspective
Holochain is quite different from blockchain, but because they are designed to solve some of the same problems — and because people try to understand Holochain in terms of blockchain all the time — we figured it would be a good idea to frame at least one key aspect of Holochain in comparison to blockchain.
This piece focuses on the approach each technology takes to solving an important challenge, which is really the fundamental challenge of decentralized computing: how to ensure that data is accurate and tamper-proof in a way that is efficient enough to scale.
Read Art & Josh’s collaboration: Blockchain: A Holochain Perspective
IOEN: Changing the Landscape with Holochain Technology
In many ways, IOEN is an IoT (Internet of Things) ecosystem, with its protocols running on many small, smart, distributed devices in every home connected with IoT devices to standard energy using appliances: phone chargers, lamps, washing machines. IOEN needs speed. It cannot have the extra cost of gas fees and requires resiliency appropriate to the size of an electricity minigrid.
As a protocol that is connecting agents within local community minigrids, Holochain’s underlying architecture enhances IOEN’s ability to deliver fast, effective distributed technology within these environments.
Read the IOEN blog: Changing the Landscape with Holochain Technology
Build it!
Build It! Is a short, live, guided tour of how to quickly develop working apps on Holochain using scaffolding and rapid application development tools.
- Watch Build it! Ep 9
- Watch Build It! Ep 10
Holochain Ecosystem Sessions
Ecosystem Sessions are long-form conversations with Holochain app builders on beliefs, the ins and outs of building distributed solutions and a featured demo of the latest progress.
- Ecosystem Session with Elemental Chess
- Ecosystem Session with Kizuna
Rust In Blockchain Newsletter
RiB Newsletter #25— Hello, Summer
Holochain Documentation Drive
In mid-July, there was a community-led documentation drive a couple weeks back guided by Sprillow. We are so grateful for the supportive and open community that has formed around the project. Check out what they accomplished and the current developer documentation!
Watch the replay of AMA 47
Just two weeks ago we hosted AMA 47, where we gave details of the HoloPort Alpha Program. You can watch the replay here.
Interested in building a hApp? Join the Holochain Developer Forum and start your journey!
If you have general questions about Holo, Holochain, or HoloPorts — or want to join our community — the best place to start is on our Twitter, Holochain or Holo Reddits.
For specific questions or any technical issues regarding Holo or HoloPorts, you can read more, or contact us directly at help.holo.host.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s short news collection and will catch you next month.
— Carolyn @ Holo
