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Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?

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Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?

#62

Post by xxs »

indigochill wrote: post #41
throwaway613834 wrote: post #39

Could someone offer a quick explanation as to what kinds of things there even _are_ to learn about blockchains? I mean from a conceptual user perspective of "let's use blockchain for my next product", not from a Bitcoin-dev perspective of "how do we fix this thing in our blockchain implementation".

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…

The answer to point 2 (proof of work) is irrelevant with regard to block chains. Those are separate class of problems.

Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?

#64

Post by Cakez0r »

MoBattah wrote: post #50
gtrubetskoy wrote: post #47

Start out with Bitcoin, and make sure you understand it well. For example it has its own stack-based language (mini smart contracts of sorts), you need to understand how that works, the different types of payments such as P2SH, etc. The O'Reilly book is good, you should also look at code in your preferred language, ideally the C++ in which Bitcoin core is written. Last but absolutely not least - you should buy some B…

....advising learning bitcoin....smart contracts...don't think these two belong in the same sentence.

> For example it has its own stack-based language

You can create "smart contracts" with bitcoin.

Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?

#65

Post by skavish »

djb_hackernews wrote: post #52
aerovistae wrote: post #20

The 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…

there is no marketing etc in this book. it is by far the best book on the topic. it covers only bitcoin, i.e. no etherium/smartcontracts etc, but it does that really well. and in fact all the other blockchains are more or less the same

Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?

#67

Post by zeroxfe »

djb_hackernews wrote: post #52
aerovistae wrote: post #20

The 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…

Ignore that -- the meat is in the inner content. Very technical, and gets into all the gory details of nearly all aspects of Bitcoin.

Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?

#68

Post by tommynicholas »

Compiled these resources while building my first smart contract. I can't promise they're the best, but I can promise I built something that works following these resources + learned a ton:

https://blankslate.io/?note=48627

(if you want just tutorials: http://truffleframework.com/tutorials/)

Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?

#69

Post by tommynicholas »

earlybike wrote: post #66

Similar question: Which tutorial enables me to write and deploy my first smart contract in Solidity within 120 minutes?

http://truffleframework.com/tutorials/

Not sure the Ethereum network can even deploy in 120 minutes these days, but you'll certainly have it built in that time :)

Re: Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?

#70

Post by zeroxfe »

throwaway613834 wrote: post #39

Could someone offer a quick explanation as to what kinds of things there even _are_ to learn about blockchains? I mean from a conceptual user perspective of "let's use blockchain for my next product", not from a Bitcoin-dev perspective of "how do we fix this thing in our blockchain implementation".

The key concepts to think about when trying to decide whether you need to use a blockchain are:

  - consensus between trustless systems
  - failure tolerance between trustless systems
  - immutability of data
  - verifiable audit trails
  - cryptographically secured ownership of data/resource/etc.
For each of these areas there are more specific considerations, e.g.:

  - access control (public, private, federated)
  - type of consensus (proof-of-work, proof-of-stake, etc.)
  - type of data (ledger, map, log) and implementation
With blockchains, there are now huge classes of problems that can be dealt with, that were impossible or impractical with traditional databases (where trust is required between multiple parties.)
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