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Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?
51–60 of 119 posts
Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?
#52The book "Mastering Bitcoin" really helped me to understand the blockchain and bitcoin properly. It's available free online here~ http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000001802/index.ht... The author is putting out a similar book called "Mastering Ethereum" in February, also through O'Reilly.
I just read the preface and have to ask... is this heavy on marketing, cheerleading and kool-aid? First the author makes it sound like the Nakamoto paper was sent from the heavens and then this:
> I became obsessed and enthralled, spending 12 or more hours each day glued to a screen, reading, writing, coding, and learning as much as I could. I emerged from this state of fugue, more than 20 pounds lighter from lack of consistent meals, determined to dedicate myself to working on bitcoin.
To me, this seems a little dramatic for what should be a technical topic.
Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disclaimer: I've mostly absorbed this stuff through osmosis and lazy web searching, but I thought I'd take a shot with my understanding and someone can correct me if I'm mistaken. Blockchains are designed to solve a certain set of problems. Understanding those problems and their relation to your product will help you determine whether a blockchain is a reasonable solution. 1. Do you need a distributed ledger? ( https…
Those are in line with my understanding too, but I'm asking what is there to learn about blockchain technology, not what the use cases are. (That's actually also a question I have, but a separate question to me.) To me a blockchain is just a tree, where the "parent pointers" are just hashes of the parent nodes rather than their addresses. And I guess to pick one as the "correct" one, you just choose the one with (say…
Based on my cursory understanding of the topic,
The Merkle tree has been around for a while, but Satoshi figured out how to use that to achieve decentralization, and consensus building. If you ask me, that's quite revolutionary.
Yes, the blockchain is just a gigantic DAG, but adding and deleting nodes on the graph is where the crux of the matter is I guess. I am starting to understand the logic from a currency perspective. Still trying to understand how the same translates to smart contracts.
Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?
#54These videos by Jordan Leigh are really great for Ethereum concepts and development.
Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a piece demystifying what a blockchain can be used for (vs. not) with intro references: https://blog.andreacoravos.com/myth-busting-can-a-blockchain... . It's written using healthcare use-cases as frame of reference, but applies to most industry implementations.
So (as I said in a sibling comment) my question wasn't "what can it be used for", but rather "what concepts are there to learn about it that could help me decide what to use it for". But regarding the topic of what it can be used for... yes, I see people talking about doing healthcare with blockchain, or BP using blockchain, or archeology using blockchain, and people asking about how to learn to use blockchain for th…
Imagine someone asking "Could APIs revolutionize healthcare?"
Well, yes, they certainly could, even though that's an extremely vague question from someone who might not even understand what they're asking.
If you're interested in hearing about blockchain's potential from a business and society perspective, there's a bunch of material, but for example the latest Andreesen-Horowitz podcast episode was about "why crypto tokens matter".
Also this recent interview with someone deeply knowledgable about the supply chain world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dla42bY7k90
Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?
#56The book "Mastering Bitcoin" really helped me to understand the blockchain and bitcoin properly. It's available free online here~ http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000001802/index.ht... The author is putting out a similar book called "Mastering Ethereum" in February, also through O'Reilly.
I just read the preface and have to ask... is this heavy on marketing, cheerleading and kool-aid? First the author makes it sound like the Nakamoto paper was sent from the heavens and then this: > I became obsessed and enthralled, spending 12 or more hours each day glued to a screen, reading, writing, coding, and learning as much as I could. I emerged from this state of fugue, more than 20 pounds lighter from lack of…
It's the Hollywood version of the events.
Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?
#57The book "Mastering Bitcoin" really helped me to understand the blockchain and bitcoin properly. It's available free online here~ http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000001802/index.ht... The author is putting out a similar book called "Mastering Ethereum" in February, also through O'Reilly.
I just read the preface and have to ask... is this heavy on marketing, cheerleading and kool-aid? First the author makes it sound like the Nakamoto paper was sent from the heavens and then this: > I became obsessed and enthralled, spending 12 or more hours each day glued to a screen, reading, writing, coding, and learning as much as I could. I emerged from this state of fugue, more than 20 pounds lighter from lack of…
Once again the autistic, asocial programmer clise gets autoconfirmed.
Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?
#58The book "Mastering Bitcoin" really helped me to understand the blockchain and bitcoin properly. It's available free online here~ http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000001802/index.ht... The author is putting out a similar book called "Mastering Ethereum" in February, also through O'Reilly.
I just read the preface and have to ask... is this heavy on marketing, cheerleading and kool-aid? First the author makes it sound like the Nakamoto paper was sent from the heavens and then this: > I became obsessed and enthralled, spending 12 or more hours each day glued to a screen, reading, writing, coding, and learning as much as I could. I emerged from this state of fugue, more than 20 pounds lighter from lack of…
Skip intro, jump right in the technical chapters, it really goes into necessary details as an introductory book.
Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disclaimer: I've mostly absorbed this stuff through osmosis and lazy web searching, but I thought I'd take a shot with my understanding and someone can correct me if I'm mistaken. Blockchains are designed to solve a certain set of problems. Understanding those problems and their relation to your product will help you determine whether a blockchain is a reasonable solution. 1. Do you need a distributed ledger? ( https…
Those are in line with my understanding too, but I'm asking what is there to learn about blockchain technology, not what the use cases are. (That's actually also a question I have, but a separate question to me.) To me a blockchain is just a tree, where the "parent pointers" are just hashes of the parent nodes rather than their addresses. And I guess to pick one as the "correct" one, you just choose the one with (say…
It's also the same thing with the git commit tree. You see commit IDs change when you rebase because of the parent pointers.
Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just read the preface and have to ask... is this heavy on marketing, cheerleading and kool-aid? First the author makes it sound like the Nakamoto paper was sent from the heavens and then this: > I became obsessed and enthralled, spending 12 or more hours each day glued to a screen, reading, writing, coding, and learning as much as I could. I emerged from this state of fugue, more than 20 pounds lighter from lack of…
Once again the autistic, asocial programmer clise gets autoconfirmed.
what's a clise