11.0.0 beta - Earthstar × Willow

[sgwilym]

Good morning! The day for an Willow-powered Earthstar 11 beta is finally here. This is a big experiment: a new protocol underpinning everything, complementary new APIs, and of course, the greatest adventure of them all: getting it all to work in JavaScript.

Another experiment is how Earthstar will be distributed. A beta release of @earthstar/earthstar is available from JSR. https://jsr.io/@earthstar/[email protected]. You can find installation instructions for your favourite runtime (yes, Node too) on there. Hopefully JSR will save us from lots of cross-runtime publishing headaches, let’s see.

The README is very much in progress (https://github.com/earthstar-project/earthstar/tree/willow), but there is already very descriptive API documentation available in your IDE and viewable here: https://jsr.io/@earthstar/[email protected]/doc. A great place to start is the Peer class: https://jsr.io/@earthstar/[email protected]/doc/~/Peer

This beta phase serves the purpose of making sure @earthstar/earthstar can really be used to build apps for the browser, Deno, and Node; that the APIs are as ergonomic as they should be; and to get the docs up to snuff. Your feedback — no matter how nitpicky — is now key! Issues, ideas, and PRs are all welcome on the Earthstar repo.

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This discussion was created from the release 11.0.0 beta - Earthstar × Willow.

[midnight-wonderer]

Hi,
I see the software has been stuck in beta for a while now, and the focus seems to have shifted to the Willow protocol.
I'm interested in developing on Earthstar; I wonder if v11 will be API-compatible with v10?

Do you have any recommendations regarding a new application? Should I start with v11 beta?

[sgwilym]

Hi @midnight-wonderer,

v11 will not be compatible with v10, as it will use Willow underneath. Starting with the v11 beta will give you a better idea of the new data model and how it will affect your application.