This document describes the full, ultimate vision for Hexarc. It serves as the target to aim for.

Introduction

  • Today's computing environment evolved from more primitive forms. It grew, unplanned, like a city, steel skyscrapers on streets designed for horse-and-buggies.
  • Dependencies are a blessing and a curse. Loose coupling allows for flexibility, but at the cost of complexity.
  • Hexarc is a computing environment for today's world. Simple enough for novices to start their programming journey, but robust enough to create world-class apps.

The Promise

  • Simple enough to learn as your first programming environment: It's what BASIC and Turbo Pascal were to the previous generation.
  • Cloud-native, device-aware: Use the best of both worlds. Does it run on the cloud or is it an app? Both! Neither!
  • Built-in scalability: Need to serve a million users? Need a render-farm with a thousand nodes? No problem. The programming environment is designed for that from the beginning.

Scenarios

Chat Program

  • A public chat program that scales arbitrarily.
  • This program should be relatively trivial, since there is so little business logic.

N-Body Gravity Simulation

  • This relies on a C++ module for distributed simulation.

Procedural Rendering using Luminous

  • This relies on the Luminous library.
  • Consider using a distributed Blender farm.

Massively-Multiplayer Roguelike

  • This could ultimately be a very large and complex program, but perhaps it can start simple.
  • Again, this might rely on a C++ module.
  • Ideally, the C++ module supports a large set of roguelikes and the game logic is all in script/data files.

Hosting Models

You can experience Hexarc in one of the following ways:

Public Arcology

You can sign in to https://ui.hexarc.com and immediately start writing programs that will run on the main Hexarc arcology.

  • Programs will scale as appropriate (e.g., Luminous can use an arbitrary number of cores).
  • There will be resource limits (CPU, storage, etc.) depending on payment level.
  • You can share programs with others (either at the source level or as a runtime).
  • Limited interaction with the client (upload/download/etc.).

Accelerated Arcology

Download the Hexarc Accelerator to your device to take advantage of local processing and resources.

  • UX is the same as for Cloud-Only
  • Access to local resources (e.g., client-side compute).
  • Add multiple devices to build your own distributed system.
  • Unlimited usage of your own resources/devices, which compensates for limits on cloud.

Private Arcology

Deploy your own arcology and have full control.

  • Can be used for free without access to Hexarc.com
  • Paid maintenance plan (~$60 per year) to use Hexarc.com as coordination, deployment, upgrade service.

See Also