This week in the Holoverse | Week ending 31st of October 2021

This week the Holo hosting testing of Elemental Chat was a big moment. Not only for the team and community but also for myself. It was the first time that I personally got to test a hApp (Holochain App).

I found the experience completely exhilarating. After following this project since before a line of code was written, sitting in front of Elemental Chat in my browser and typing messages was a real buzz.

Ever since the World Wide Web came into existence, Websites and Web applications have been brought to you using the client/server architecture. Knowing I was typing messages using revolutionary new serverless tech that supersedes the old way of doing things was a moment I’ll always remember.

In this test not only could people access Elemental Chat in their browser, but if you downloaded Holochain Launcher, you could also run Elemental Chat on your local computer. All the messages synced between what was accessible via the browser and the Holochain Launcher version that ran on peoples own computers.

There were a few small bugs and the team are at work squashing them. It feels like it won’t be too long until Elemental Chat public alpha. Once this happens, everyone will be able to enjoy a moment like this.

IOEN – Internet of Energy Network answers your questions

To say IOEN (Internet of Energy Network) has had a big few months would be an understatement. IOEN is going to revolutionise energy grids and it’s powered by Holochain.

The team answered some of the most asked questions they’ve had in this Medium article. We’re going to see a lot of next-gen tech being enabled by Holochain over the coming years. Watching early adopters like IOEN doing so well in these early stages is just a small taste of what is to come.

Where! hApp Demo – Grammatics of Location

A little while ago we reported on a blog post by Holochain Co-Founder Eric Harris-Braun.

This week in the developer-focused Holochain in Action video series, Eric delves deeper into a new hApp called Where! that was introduced in that blog post.

Where! opens up new ways of representing what is happening within a space. These spaces can be geographic, abstract or something as meta as you can think of. The building blocks of these spaces are what Eric calls grammar, plus a data updateable SVG (Scaleable Vector Graphic).

Eric’s perspective of grammar goes beyond what I think most peoples idea of what grammar is. Grammar is generally regarded as rules around language, but it goes deeper than that for Eric. Eric likens grammar to the building blocks of all that is. The fact that I have a different grammar for what I think Eric is describing as grammar, had me in some kind of grammar Inception experience.

The great thing is Where! is going to help map all of this. As Eric says in the video, the real power in this is how others will use it in ways he couldn’t imagine at this stage. If you’re a software developer we highly recommend you explore the possibilities here. You can be sure there are some yet to be thought of groundbreaking hApps that come out of exploring this space.