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Ethereum from scratch – Part 1: Ping

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Re: Ethereum from scratch – Part 1: Ping

#91

Post by TeMPOraL »

philh wrote: post #38
flunhat wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Difference being that a poorly written web app amounts to some leaked passwords and email addresses. A poorly written smart contract that handles real money, on the other hand...

...passwords that might be reused for the email addresses, and paypal, and... A web app might not touch real money, but a leak can still have real money consequences for the users.

There are also other consequences:

- vulnerabilities can be used to attack users directly or through social engineering

- (rare today, but definitely a problem with C++ web apps) you can break through a hole in the app and pwn the whole server

Re: Ethereum from scratch – Part 1: Ping

#92

Post by TeMPOraL »

zdkl wrote: post #86
xj9 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'd like formally verified laws if i could

I dislike algorithms that I understand, and I distrust algorithms that I don't when it comes to stuff like social security or insurance. Smart contracts by composition would be really nice. Like a compile to EVM lisp!

Related: could we please have a Lisp for Ethereum VM? Thanks!

Re: Ethereum from scratch – Part 1: Ping

#93

Post by TeMPOraL »

xj9 wrote: post #68
max_ wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A law can only can be as bug free as software? 100% bug free software is impossible! As long as they are written by humans? Their will always be bugs. Matter who is writting them.

i'd like formally verified laws if i could

This might be possible at some point, but for that we first need to figure out how to formalize intent and meaning. In real-world laws, both are extremely important.

Re: Ethereum from scratch – Part 1: Ping

#94

Post by zdkl »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #89
zdkl wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lot of effort to spare yourself a conversation about convention within your friends and a small money pot. Smart contracts fit really well for generally managing securities, developping auto hedging portfolios.

> That's a lot of effort to spare yourself a conversation about convention within your friends and a small money pot. Hey, that was an example meant to explain difficult concepts through terms most people will be familiar with. You can't judge it like this. Somewhat related, and maybe I'm revealing my stupidity here, but I wish someone explained securities to me in a simple way.

I'm stupid as well so don't take this as gospel.

A security is a fictional asset used to represent higher level operations one can conduct on an underlying asset. Basically it's all the made up tradable assets.

The specific definition varies depending on jurisdiction but if I remember correctly the SEC goes with something like any token that is used to transfer unrealised value between traders or across time.

About your example, I understand that but I'm sorry to see that all examples we collectively come up with for smart contracts are even more constrained than hello worlds and in my humble opinion unfit for the "real purpose" of the EVM. The same line of reasoning applies to bitcoin: it's not a wallet to pay your coffee or receive your salary, but an alternative to banks/payment processors when you need it.

Likewise in my opinion again, the EVM isn't made to replace informal contracts or legal/notarial/... affairs but to provide an alternative when the costs/benefits of contract law aren't fit for your use case.

Re: Ethereum from scratch – Part 1: Ping

#95

Post by zdkl »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #92
zdkl wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike algorithms that I understand, and I distrust algorithms that I don't when it comes to stuff like social security or insurance. Smart contracts by composition would be really nice. Like a compile to EVM lisp!

Related: could we please have a Lisp for Ethereum VM? Thanks!

Yeah if someone's working on it, please link. Would contribute

Re: Ethereum from scratch – Part 1: Ping

#96

Post by TeMPOraL »

zdkl wrote: post #94
TeMPOraL wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a lot of effort to spare yourself a conversation about convention within your friends and a small money pot. Hey, that was an example meant to explain difficult concepts through terms most people will be familiar with. You can't judge it like this. Somewhat related, and maybe I'm revealing my stupidity here, but I wish someone explained securities to me in a simple way.

I'm stupid as well so don't take this as gospel. A security is a fictional asset used to represent higher level operations one can conduct on an underlying asset. Basically it's all the made up tradable assets. The specific definition varies depending on jurisdiction but if I remember correctly the SEC goes with something like any token that is used to transfer unrealised value between traders or across time. About y…

Thanks. I wonder why it's called "security" (as in, safety from attacks).

> I understand that but I'm sorry to see that all examples we collectively come up with for smart contracts are even more constrained than hello worlds and in my humble opinion unfit for the "real purpose" of the EVM. The same line of reasoning applies to bitcoin: it's not a wallet to pay your coffee or receive your salary, but an alternative to banks/payment processors when you need it.

Fair enough, though I think that we need both, and preferably together. Those trivial examples are actually useful to people the very first time they try to understand the basics of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts. And after that, when someone gets the basic mechanics of the process, I think an example should follow with a description of actual use, and how the same mechanics facilitate it.

> Likewise in my opinion again, the EVM isn't made to replace informal contracts or legal/notarial/... affairs but to provide an alternative when the costs/benefits of contract law aren't fit for your use case.

I agree, I see it this way too. I cringe when I see people hopeful for replacing legal system with ETH, because that would be just plain dumb. But an alternative option to use when it fits better? I'm very much in favour.

Re: Ethereum from scratch – Part 1: Ping

#97

Post by canoebuilder »

globuous wrote: post #79
canada_dry wrote: post #12

Though I meet the criteria as stated (knowledge level wise - I'm a retired IT Exec/long time geek), yet this still is a bit too esoteric for me. As one of the 'killer apps' for ethereum is smart contracts, I'd like to see this explained in a 'for dummies' high level way, then decomposed into the finer technical chunks needed to make it happen.

I like to think of smart contracts as ways to program money. Imagine if you could program a dollar bill. Then there's lots of cool stuff that could be done :) If you could program money, you might not really need insurers anymore. You could just program insuree's money so it redistributed appropriately in case of flooding (for eg). No need to give you money to an entity and have a conflict of interest with your insur…

It's like if you insurance was a program.

That's an interesting way to think about it, but how do you communicate to the program that a tree fell on your car and you need it to give you money for a new one?

Basically what's the mechanism for communicating certain cases or conditions to the program, how does the program verify the claims you make to it, and how many of the scenarios where that works are practical for any real world applications?

Re: Ethereum from scratch – Part 1: Ping

#98

Post by zdkl »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #96
zdkl wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm stupid as well so don't take this as gospel. A security is a fictional asset used to represent higher level operations one can conduct on an underlying asset. Basically it's all the made up tradable assets. The specific definition varies depending on jurisdiction but if I remember correctly the SEC goes with something like any token that is used to transfer unrealised value between traders or across time. About y…

Thanks. I wonder why it's called "security" (as in, safety from attacks). > I understand that but I'm sorry to see that all examples we collectively come up with for smart contracts are even more constrained than hello worlds and in my humble opinion unfit for the "real purpose" of the EVM. The same line of reasoning applies to bitcoin: it's not a wallet to pay your coffee or receive your salary, but an alternative t…

As far as I understand the term security refers to the properties of such assets that make them useful to hedge or otherwise balance the tradebook without having to worry about the concrete underlying assets' particulars.

Re: Ethereum from scratch – Part 1: Ping

#99

Post by canoebuilder »

mbrock wrote: post #78
canada_dry wrote: post #12

Though I meet the criteria as stated (knowledge level wise - I'm a retired IT Exec/long time geek), yet this still is a bit too esoteric for me. As one of the 'killer apps' for ethereum is smart contracts, I'd like to see this explained in a 'for dummies' high level way, then decomposed into the finer technical chunks needed to make it happen.

Imagine you and your friends are for some reason dissatisfied with the way you are able to deal with money among yourselves. For example, maybe you like to quickly reimburse each other for dinner, but you won't or can't use Facebook Messenger payments, perhaps because some of you aren't on Facebook, or you're not in the US. So you want to make your own little payments system. You might start with just setting up a si…

Recognizing it's merely an example, I think nonetheless it would be good to present examples that are actually compelling.

Let's think about your example and what it entails.

So you're going to a pizza party with your friends, and instead of saying to your buddy Mike who you're about to see in person and share some pizza with, "Hey Mike, here's 5 bucks, thanks!"

Instead you fire up the ol' ethereum whizbang machine, and "pay" Mike. The payment then rattles around the ol' globally distributed whizbang machine, at the SPEED of Light! powered by electricity through countless microscopic electronic gating mechanisms before finally settling into the storage media of thousands of computers around the world, where it will stay, forever.

That seems needlessly wasteful of resources and expensive.

What it boils down to, is what is this good for?

While some may have been, not everyone was confounded by the introduction of the web. Many could see obvious avenues of potential and development.

Even back in the 60s or 70s people were envisioning computer network enabled home shopping. Not sure many were envisioning a global distributed turing complete whatchamacallit with ever expanding resource needs because of no garbage collection by design.

So simply, what's the point? What do you do with it besides buy pizzas with your friends? How is it better than existing methods for doing whatever you envision doing with it?

What if anything, does it enable that would otherwise be impossible?

Re: Ethereum from scratch – Part 1: Ping

#100

Post by mbrock »

canoebuilder wrote: post #99
mbrock wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you and your friends are for some reason dissatisfied with the way you are able to deal with money among yourselves. For example, maybe you like to quickly reimburse each other for dinner, but you won't or can't use Facebook Messenger payments, perhaps because some of you aren't on Facebook, or you're not in the US. So you want to make your own little payments system. You might start with just setting up a si…

Recognizing it's merely an example, I think nonetheless it would be good to present examples that are actually compelling. Let's think about your example and what it entails. So you're going to a pizza party with your friends, and instead of saying to your buddy Mike who you're about to see in person and share some pizza with, "Hey Mike, here's 5 bucks, thanks!" Instead you fire up the ol' ethereum whizbang machine,…

You could make a similarly incredulous argument that messenger apps are totally ridiculous because why would you use a 500 dollar handheld computer to write a message through the "internet" when you could just talk IRL?

I mean, like, within three years you'll probably be having a virtual reality pizza party with your friends on the other side of the world. That's less wasteful of resources than flying, you know! And how will the money work? Maybe with a blockchain.

Let's try to stretch the imagination even more! Imagine you are involved with an open source project. You want to be able to receive some donations, collectively. So you briefly consider setting up a PayPal account, then giggle. "Ha-ha! Why would I use PayPal when these smart contract blockchains technologies have been working well for many years?"

So instead you go to one of the future's several competing smart contract platforms, and you click "Set up budgeted donation contract." It asks you to input the parameters for your donation contract. Maybe you end up configuring something like "Every week, this account's balance will be allocated as follows: 25% to GitHub; 50% split among these N core developers; 25% to the fund; and 25% to the EFF."

Your fans and users can then verify the behavior of this donation contract and easily contribute to your project! Wow! So much cooler than PayPal!

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