Last week, Cardstack welcomes Derrick Camerino to our first in-person team meeting, who has recently joined the development team and has been working remotely. Previously, he was a software developer at PagerDuty and Google. At Cardstack, his work will focus on application development, with the aim of creating reusable user interface modules any future Cardstack app developer can leverage.

The Cardstack application framework is ready for developers to build Web 3.0 experiences that are connected to both blockchain and cloud data sources.

To jump-start the catalog of card-based experiences, the Cardstack team will build a set of default cards to be shipped, so that every Cardstack instance allows developers and end users to use these cards right away.

To gather more frequent feedback, the Cardstack core team will move to an iterative and open process. As we build more cards to add to the catalog, the product specifications, end user scenarios, design mock-ups, and developer documentation will be shared with the wider community.

As a result, the community will see a steadier stream of updates from the team – in a language that makes it easier for everyone to understand what’s happening at Cardstack.

In the coming weeks, the Cardstack team will transition to a new set of tools. It is our goal to make all the artifacts available to the public, and to capture as well as review feedback, so as to guide our efforts to build the experience layer of Web 3.0.

Watch our newest teaser video about the future of content creation and distribution—done the Web 3.0 way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAmYfF2ITtI&feature=youtu.be

In this video, we show how Cardstack combines front-end open-web technology with an open-source version control system called Git, which is then integrated with a blockchain to record permissions and history—so that any piece of content can live and evolve anywhere, while keeping its relationships intact. This way, we enable makers, storytellers, developers, and designers to form decentralized networks and finally create on their own terms!

Watch Chris’s newest talk, where he introduces Gitchain – a chain-agnostic Layer-2 application state synchronization & syndication protocol based on Git. He explains how Git complements the blockchain perfectly, to support end-user-facing decentralized applications on the open Web.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iCg4HMsv2U&feature=youtu.be

In this week’s video, Chris presents a summary of our Q2 team strategy planning meeting. He talks about the concept, power and value of cards for developers and end users—while giving insights into the current state of and the future strategy for the Card SDK and, consequently, the Card Catalog, which is an important part of end-user facing software. He also provides an overview of the test applications Cardstack has built, presenting cards and capabilities that are and will be part of the SDK codebase. This flexible and open-source SDK will allow developers to easily build new cards to be delivered to end users, who can then use them to create their own content. As more and more people create their own experience in the Cardstack universe, the Card Catalog will, hopefully, be able to replace today’s app stores in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-ZrvXBSDC4&feature=youtu.be

See Gitchain in action! Watch our newest technical demo video, where Chris and senior developer Alex demonstrate how our “Card Board” application, which is built on the Cardstack Framework, can synchronize its state, using Gitchain as a Layer-2 protocol on top of a distributed ledger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNfojsqKEI0

Check out our blog post that goes with Chris’s recent technical talk on Gitchain. This in-depth article explains how Gitchain works, how you can use it, and how it fits into the overall Cardstack architecture. Supported by useful visuals, it also gives you insights into the thoughts behind the idea to combine Git and blockchain in this new way we call Gitchain!
https://medium.com/cardstack/introducing-gitchain-add61790226e

Watch our newest tech talk on the media registry we built for dotBC—based on song data from Warner Music Group and Warner/Chappell music—using the Cardstack Framework. Chris explains the complex architecture behind this blockchain-based music metadata management system, which we shipped in Q1. Additionally, a demo by our product manager Dmitry shows you how the registry can be used—to request access rights, edit details, approve edits, download files, and match songs in this music catalog.
https://youtu.be/BXKgAhtUl9c

Here’s an in-depth article to go with Chris’s strategy talk about the Card SDK and the Card Catalog. Chris talks about what cards are, what they can do, what they mean for end users, and how they can be built by our developer community, using our software development kit.
https://medium.com/cardstack/building-the-card-catalog-bf034445d05e

Check out how Jen Weber codes live, demonstrating how to convert a Cardstack package into TypeScript. She shows and explains what TypeScript can do and how you can use it in your own codebases. TypeScript offers powerful API usage information to developers who build their own projects with the Card SDK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHWZD2Boo9E

Watch Jen Weber’s sneak peek into our CLI! If you’re interested in contributing to Cardstack, let Jen show you how she uses Embroider—a modern build system for Ember applications—in combination with the Card SDK to eliminate bugs and create new cards. https://youtu.be/QuHUV69C-9E

This past week, we hosted the hackNY fellows class of 2019 at our office in One World Trade Center! hackNY is a program that connects talented student technologists with innovative tech startups in New York City, seeking to empower students with strong technical skills and promote inclusivity in tech. The two founders of hackNY, Chris Wiggins, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Columbia University and Chief Data Scientist at NYTimes, and Evan Korth, Professor of Computer Science at NYU, spoke about the history of the tech community in New York City, and how NY can continue to grow to become a resilient community that takes advantage of the multi-dimensional nature of the city.

We are excited to introduce Sinan Karabocuoglu from Istanbul as our newest software development intern. Fun fact in his own words: “I’m a huge fan of Marvel and DC comics; and I love playing volleyball and basketball with my friends.”
Sinan will be working on the Cardstack Protocol implementation, where he gets to build new cards using the recently upgraded Card SDK. Our goal is to make it easy for someone as young as Sinan to build applications with Cardstack.

Here’s a general update to bring you up to speed on our recent developments! In case you missed some of our previous announcements, just have a look at this new blog post, which summarizes what we’ve been working on in the last few months and shows you the progress we’ve made this year. https://medium.com/cardstack/whats-new-at-cardstack-d1e24add82f1

What’s Gitchain?
Gitchain is the back-end technology used by the Cardstack Hub to synchronize data in decentralized storage via public blockchains, like Ethereum.
Using Gitchain, Cardstack app creators can manage their cards through version control. Say you’ve made a mistake editing the blog content in your Article Card—Gitchain allows you to find the previous version of your blog and revert your card state back to that version.

Here’s our quick guide for writing your own quickstart guide! Jen Weber explains the principles she follows to create the quickstart for the Card SDK, so as to deliver a great user experience for developers. This includes the role the target audience should play, ways to enable developers with no prior knowledge to use the provided features, and ideas for testing the work to collect helpful feedback. Watch Jen share her insights and apply them to your own projects!
https://youtu.be/LIPMftwNGSE