Am I misreading the code? Isn't the EndLottery function completely broken? It looks like it finds the first user who bet less than the winning number. So, in order to win you should play ASAP and bet epsilon > 0, right?.
Learn Ethereum smart contract programming
81–90 of 244 posts
Re: Learn Ethereum smart contract programming
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you read next article? https://ethereumdev.io/better-readability-with-modifiers/
You are right, they solved the particular problem I highlighted with Modifiers. But the main question remains: Why don't they utilize the progess we made in decades of research for better programming languages? The argument that Solidity should be useable by the average programmer doesn't hold, in fact, typing makes programming easier since it clarifies data structures that are implicit in languages like JS.
PL people often direct their "it should be functional and use strong typing" critique at the EVM rather than Solidity. Solidity is just one HLL (higher level language) that compiles to EVM bytecode.
A lot of the limitations of Solidity are due to constraints of the EVM, but the EVM is evolving. For instance, the next planned hard fork will enable the EVM to pass dynamically sized data (e.g. solidity arrays or strings) between call stacks. Previously arrays had to be fixed-size, so you'd have to define a fixed maximum size, then always return data of that size (usually a lot of empty elements). This feature, like many others, is somewhat challenging to design because every execution step of the EVM must be metered by a "gas fee"; the first version of the EVM kept it simple by only allowing return data to be a fixed size. See these issues for background https://github.com/ethereum/solidity/issues/164 https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/pull/211
Also, the longer-term proposal is to adopt WebAssembly for EVM 2.0: https://github.com/ewasm/design. Then users can write contract code using any language with an llvm compiler (rust, ocaml, etc.).
Re: Learn Ethereum smart contract programming
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know Bitcoin is useful. One of the useful things in Bitcoin is that you can make a transaction conditional on a multiparty approval ("multisig"). This is used by many organizations to control funds in a safe way. Ethereum lets you construct even more interesting types of transactions. For example you can easily implement the logic of a crowdfunding (unless X is raised by time Y everyone is refunded). In that cont…
> In that context, "smart contract" is just a way of saying that you're not relying on the promise of a third party to perform the refund—it's automatic What if the code is malicious, and instead of auto refund it steals the money? I mean, not everyone would read the code to see what it really does, so what happens in that case?
> I mean, not everyone would read the code to see what it really does, so what happens in that case?
This is true with real world contracts too, that's why people hire lawyers - they understand the "code" of contract law.
Re: Learn Ethereum smart contract programming
#84Is there any other crypto platform allow to write dApps for blockchain?
EOS is the likely successor in my opinion.
(eos.io)
In development now, but a development environment will be up and running by the end of the summer; testnet coming in the fall. Full release next summer.
Re: Learn Ethereum smart contract programming
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have not. Do you really think I should have to?
This is a very interesting retort. No you don't have to. You just have to trust that the community has provided you with a secure, usable tool. It is unreasonable to expect you to understand the engineering that goes into this kind of thing, if you are not a computer science educated individual. That is not the point of participation though. Developers don't have an intrinsic right to participate. The exclusion becau…
The issue with that is I don't trust it to be secure. If you make 1 mistake you can loose everything without a possibility to fix your mistake.
Re: Learn Ethereum smart contract programming
#86The problem I see with Ethereum is that it is way too complex. I have read perhaps at least 10 times on their home page without even understanding what it does, what problems it solves etc. This is the sole reason why I don't think it will be successful in it's current state. With most successful tech or services or whatever the core idea is often super simple to grasp and you can instantly see the benefit. I don't s…
Maybe if you actually used it you'd see the benefits of it... try transferring any amount of value with Bitcoin.. take note of how much it costs and how long it takes. Then do the same with Ethereum. You'll start to learn pretty quickly what some of the main differences are.
Regarding the 'fixed amount of Bitcoins' argument, I'd agree it's a nice simple marketing message but if you look in to what Ethereum is planning to do, issuance could well go to close to zero, zero or even below zero once proof of stake is introduced: https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/879858608091144193
Re: Learn Ethereum smart contract programming
#87The problem I see with Ethereum is that it is way too complex. I have read perhaps at least 10 times on their home page without even understanding what it does, what problems it solves etc. This is the sole reason why I don't think it will be successful in it's current state. With most successful tech or services or whatever the core idea is often super simple to grasp and you can instantly see the benefit. I don't s…
You know Bitcoin is useful. One of the useful things in Bitcoin is that you can make a transaction conditional on a multiparty approval ("multisig"). This is used by many organizations to control funds in a safe way. Ethereum lets you construct even more interesting types of transactions. For example you can easily implement the logic of a crowdfunding (unless X is raised by time Y everyone is refunded). In that cont…
Just shifting the problem. Okay, so the money is raised... you still never get your vaporware product.
Re: Learn Ethereum smart contract programming
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know Bitcoin is useful. One of the useful things in Bitcoin is that you can make a transaction conditional on a multiparty approval ("multisig"). This is used by many organizations to control funds in a safe way. Ethereum lets you construct even more interesting types of transactions. For example you can easily implement the logic of a crowdfunding (unless X is raised by time Y everyone is refunded). In that cont…
> In that context, "smart contract" is just a way of saying that you're not relying on the promise of a third party to perform the refund—it's automatic What if the code is malicious, and instead of auto refund it steals the money? I mean, not everyone would read the code to see what it really does, so what happens in that case?
That is a very good question that is the subject of a lot of denial. You might want to read about the DAO hack and the Parity wallet hack. You will notice there are two different possible outcomes: in the first case, some of the Ethereum founders were major victims, and they used their influence to persuade a majority of the miners to implement a 'hard fork' to essentially roll back the blockchain. In the second case, the victims do not appear to be well-connected, and it seems their missing ~$30M of Eth is irretrievably lost (and it is not clear to me that a second hard fork would be feasible at this point, regardless of who the victims are.)
Re: Learn Ethereum smart contract programming
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In that context, "smart contract" is just a way of saying that you're not relying on the promise of a third party to perform the refund—it's automatic What if the code is malicious, and instead of auto refund it steals the money? I mean, not everyone would read the code to see what it really does, so what happens in that case?
> I mean, not everyone would read the code to see what it really does, so what happens in that case? This is true with real world contracts too, that's why people hire lawyers - they understand the "code" of contract law.
But real world contracts are never 100% clear, and can be modified retroactively in court when their terms violate the law, are vague, or are otherwise deemed unenforceable.
Re: Learn Ethereum smart contract programming
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In that context, "smart contract" is just a way of saying that you're not relying on the promise of a third party to perform the refund—it's automatic What if the code is malicious, and instead of auto refund it steals the money? I mean, not everyone would read the code to see what it really does, so what happens in that case?
> I mean, not everyone would read the code to see what it really does, so what happens in that case? This is true with real world contracts too, that's why people hire lawyers - they understand the "code" of contract law.
More accurately - judges and lawyers interpret law, contract and otherwise. This sort of interpretation is explicitly ruled out in Ethereum's case, except when enough stakeholders decide it's not.