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Actually, I think Solidity being designed to turn bad node.js coders into bad smart contract coders was key to Ethereum's success. I've written a book on this

Actually, I think Solidity being designed to turn bad node.js coders into bad smart contract coders was key to Ethereum's success. I've written a book on this (hit upload five minutes ago! release Monday!) which hammers on this point (and all the stuff surrounding this issue). I think Solidity is actually designed with worse is better in mind, because Ethereum is the first smart contract platform that anyone actually used. Some tried doing them in Bitcoin, but Ethereum's the first that gets lots of action. And so many other blockchains lift the smart contract functionality straight from Ethereum.

kbenson 9y ago
That may be, but if so, it might be worse. What's worse, not getting a lot of uptake for this idea that's been hard going for others, or getting the uptake because of trade-offs you made that make it a ticking time-bomb that may damage the reputation of the idea for years to come and set it back?
- dahdum 9y ago
  Solidity is like PHP in the 90's, easy to learn and easy to screw up. Though Solidity just compiles to the EVM, and there is no reason new, safer languages can't be built on top. As far as I can remember, the EVM has never failed, just programmers.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    That comparison may be apt. PHP at that time was a mix of some good ideas (ease of deployment) with some horrible ones (register globals on by default is unexcusable), and some poor planning. We all lived with the fallout of that for a very long time. The register globals issue could have been avoided at very little cost, if any cost at all, to the popularity and spread of the language and many millions of dollars and much personal information would have been saved.
  - shp0ngle 9y ago
    I disagree, Solidity is really not easy to learn. It is easy to screw up, though.
moeop 9y ago
I agree that it was a key to the success; but it will also be a key to it's failure. Because it's a financial system, and normal sane people don't want money that is demonstrably worse for nearly all the things that normal sane people do with money. Ethereum is a great political statement, and a fun toy... but when you recast the worse is better story into this context, you're just demonstrating that you don't really understand the meaning of the words that you are mindlessly parroting. Thanks for warning us that you're about to release a terrible book, with an incredibly stupid central idea. You might as well have just written that MySpace is the future of social networking. Because while crypto will have an interesting place in the future; only a complete moron would make the argument that Ethereum is a success, or that worse is better applies here. Congratulations on being that moron.
- davidgerard 9y ago
  You appear to have misconstrued my words. I don't in any way think this is a good idea; just one that has the viral characteristics of "worse is better". I spent about three thousand words on the smart contracts chapter, attempting to conclusively stab this bad idea in the face and supply a suitable rhetorical ammo dump for anyone faced with having to deal with these things to kill the idea stone dead. Absolutely everything about smart contracts is terrible and misconceived. I don't believe there is any way to do them right, because the idea is fundamentally wrong. Here's (an older draft, need to update) what I actually say about Solidity and Ethereum smart contracts: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/ethereum-smart-contracts-in-practice/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/ethereum-smart-contract...
  - yourapostasy 9y ago
    Are you asserting Szabo's original smart contracts idea "is terrible and misconceived", or Ethereum's implementation "is terrible and misconceived". The latter, I would have to agree; hard forking as a response to these kinds of security holes is neither sustainable nor scalable, and I'm very partial to mechanical proof-based designs and implementations as a result.
    - 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
flashmob 9y ago
You've wet my appetite. Got a link to your book?
- ucarion 9y ago
  Pedantry: you mean whet, not wet. To "whet" means to excite, stimulate.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    Literally, to sharpen, as in "whetstone".
- rainboiboi 9y ago
  Check out his profile.
  - flashmob 9y ago
    Thanks. Glad I checked the profile.
- sah2ed 9y ago
  This should save anyone else a few clicks: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073CPP581 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073CPP581

kbenson 9y ago

That may be, but if so, it might be worse. What's worse, not getting a lot of uptake for this idea that's been hard going for others, or getting the uptake because of trade-offs you made that make it a ticking time-bomb that may damage the reputation of the idea for years to come and set it back?

dahdum 9y ago
Solidity is like PHP in the 90's, easy to learn and easy to screw up. Though Solidity just compiles to the EVM, and there is no reason new, safer languages can't be built on top. As far as I can remember, the EVM has never failed, just programmers.
- kbenson 9y ago
  That comparison may be apt. PHP at that time was a mix of some good ideas (ease of deployment) with some horrible ones (register globals on by default is unexcusable), and some poor planning. We all lived with the fallout of that for a very long time. The register globals issue could have been avoided at very little cost, if any cost at all, to the popularity and spread of the language and many millions of dollars and much personal information would have been saved.
- shp0ngle 9y ago
  I disagree, Solidity is really not easy to learn. It is easy to screw up, though.

moeop 9y ago

I agree that it was a key to the success; but it will also be a key to it's failure. Because it's a financial system, and normal sane people don't want money that is demonstrably worse for nearly all the things that normal sane people do with money. Ethereum is a great political statement, and a fun toy... but when you recast the worse is better story into this context, you're just demonstrating that you don't really understand the meaning of the words that you are mindlessly parroting. Thanks for warning us that you're about to release a terrible book, with an incredibly stupid central idea. You might as well have just written that MySpace is the future of social networking. Because while crypto will have an interesting place in the future; only a complete moron would make the argument that Ethereum is a success, or that worse is better applies here. Congratulations on being that moron.

davidgerard 9y ago
You appear to have misconstrued my words. I don't in any way think this is a good idea; just one that has the viral characteristics of "worse is better". I spent about three thousand words on the smart contracts chapter, attempting to conclusively stab this bad idea in the face and supply a suitable rhetorical ammo dump for anyone faced with having to deal with these things to kill the idea stone dead. Absolutely everything about smart contracts is terrible and misconceived. I don't believe there is any way to do them right, because the idea is fundamentally wrong. Here's (an older draft, need to update) what I actually say about Solidity and Ethereum smart contracts: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/ethereum-smart-contracts-in-practice/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/ethereum-smart-contract...
- yourapostasy 9y ago
  Are you asserting Szabo's original smart contracts idea "is terrible and misconceived", or Ethereum's implementation "is terrible and misconceived". The latter, I would have to agree; hard forking as a response to these kinds of security holes is neither sustainable nor scalable, and I'm very partial to mechanical proof-based designs and implementations as a result.
  - 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

flashmob 9y ago

You've wet my appetite. Got a link to your book?

ucarion 9y ago
Pedantry: you mean whet, not wet. To "whet" means to excite, stimulate.
- throwanem 9y ago
  Literally, to sharpen, as in "whetstone".
rainboiboi 9y ago
Check out his profile.
- flashmob 9y ago
  Thanks. Glad I checked the profile.
sah2ed 9y ago
This should save anyone else a few clicks: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073CPP581 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073CPP581