Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?

Post by MattSayar » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 3:39 PM UTC

apo wrote: post #85

I recently published an intermediate-level e-book on Bitcoin: http://bitzuma.com/owning-bitcoin/ This is the book I wish had existed when I started learning about Bitcoin in 2011. It's a technical deep-dive for a non-expert audience. Only knowledge of high school algebra and a willingness to learn are assumed. Every technical term comes with a definition. Over 300 figures help visual learners understand complex techn…

Post by louprado » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 3:48 PM UTC

AlexCoventry wrote: post #83

djb_hackernews wrote: post #52

Earlier 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…

> is this heavy on marketing, cheerleading and kool-aid? I haven't looked at the book, but the author is, a bit. Here's a somewhat banana-pants talk he recently gave. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyK4P7ZdOK8

Post by dabockster » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 4:44 PM UTC

mosselman wrote: post #82

cooervo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again the autistic, asocial programmer clise gets autoconfirmed.

Why so hateful? What does having autism have to do with this? I don't really like the quoted piece from the preface either, and even if the author has autism, what does it matter? Isn't it more fair to people with autism and more powerful with regards to your dislike to the author to just not like the author based on that you don't like him as a person? That way you don't insult everyone with autism and you insult hi…

Post by Karrot_Kream » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 4:48 PM UTC

throwaway613834 wrote: post #45

indigochill wrote: post #41

Earlier 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…

Post by socrates1024 » Wed, Oct 04, 2017, 4:58 PM UTC

vjdhama wrote: post #30

There's this course by the people who wrote `Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies` It covers the basics pretty well. http://bitcoinbook.cs.princeton.edu/