5 ms·

Agreed, and the massive hacks and losses will continue as long as smart contracts are written in Solidity.

guscost 9y ago
The EVM is Turing-complete, so this will be a risk with any language that compiles into a smart contract. Solidity doesn't appeal to me because its goal seems to be on-boarding JavaScript programmers. But new languages that compile to EVM can be easier to use "safely" and you will see several of these in the next few years. I'm really excited that a project to embed Turing-complete behavior in a blockchain has actually taken off. It's completely insane from one perspective, but completely awesome from another.
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  The EVM might be Turing complete but you can still have languages that compile down to only some tractable sub-set of the possible EVM programs. The interesting question is whether a language can be design which allows the important domain-relevant requirements to written down in an understandable way and also proved rigorously. So far neither lawyers nor programmers have done a very good job of this in their respective field. Watching people trying to do it in both fields simultaneously sounds like popcorn time to me.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    Huh? Lawyers have done an exceptional job. There are huge swaths of activity around which there is consensus about legal dogma. And huge swaths of activity where programmers have laid out clear deterministic expectations. If you're saying lawyers have failed to specify the legal ramifications of All Possible Activity then... Sure. So? Even if Ethereum only works for one single narrowly defined contract, it could be immensely useful. The question for me isn't "where could it fall short" but "where might it measure up?"
- tscs37 9y ago
  The EVM might be turing-complete but since you can only get finite number of execution cycles, you can usually determine the behaviour of your program or if it halts within the current gas limits.

The EVM is Turing-complete, so this will be a risk with any language that compiles into a smart contract. Solidity doesn't appeal to me because its goal seems to be on-boarding JavaScript programmers. But new languages that compile to EVM can be easier to use "safely" and you will see several of these in the next few years. I'm really excited that a project to embed Turing-complete behavior in a blockchain has actually taken off. It's completely insane from one perspective, but completely awesome from another.

adrianratnapala 9y ago
The EVM might be Turing complete but you can still have languages that compile down to only some tractable sub-set of the possible EVM programs. The interesting question is whether a language can be design which allows the important domain-relevant requirements to written down in an understandable way and also proved rigorously. So far neither lawyers nor programmers have done a very good job of this in their respective field. Watching people trying to do it in both fields simultaneously sounds like popcorn time to me.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  Huh? Lawyers have done an exceptional job. There are huge swaths of activity around which there is consensus about legal dogma. And huge swaths of activity where programmers have laid out clear deterministic expectations. If you're saying lawyers have failed to specify the legal ramifications of All Possible Activity then... Sure. So? Even if Ethereum only works for one single narrowly defined contract, it could be immensely useful. The question for me isn't "where could it fall short" but "where might it measure up?"
tscs37 9y ago
The EVM might be turing-complete but since you can only get finite number of execution cycles, you can usually determine the behaviour of your program or if it halts within the current gas limits.