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Such languages won't make it far because the software they produce isn't really useful in industry or business. Whether or not there may be some future applicat

Such languages won't make it far because the software they produce isn't really useful in industry or business. Whether or not there may be some future application for "dApps", currently none exist so there isn't much incentive for learning a dApp language (except pure curiosity about the platform) when you could learn a language that can produce useful software (e.g. Kotlin, Rust, Golang, C# etc)

mrdoops 8y ago
I disagree a smart contract language is without value to business - but I agree it's speculative and unclear at the moment. The best we can do is look at cloud platform and programming language maturation/adoption to get a feel for what a decentralized app platform will take in time and engineering effort. The idea being we're a few years at least before language and infrastructure can be mature enough to have value for most users beyond earliest of adopters. The other languages you've mentioned are much further along than any "dApp" platform at what they do. Decentralized application platforms like Ethereum are a new space with new requirements but, as far as I can tell, necessitate a new language to satisfy unique requirements. The hot-take is that Solidity is probably going to take some big changes to make it much further. I've not been impressed with it.
- root_axis 8y ago
  It is useless at this time. There are no legal businesses that are now possible that weren't before the advent of cryptocurrency and criminal businesses still existed in the cash-only world (although they are easier to facilitate with cryptocurrency). > we're a few years at least before language and infrastructure can be mature enough to have value for most users beyond earliest of adopters There isn't really a clear explanation of why that would be the case. The bottom line is that smart contracts require a trusted oracle to feed data into the system, at that point, the advantages over a centralized system are essentially zero. There is no reason why anyone except enthusiasts, tinkerers and criminals would get involved.

mrdoops 8y ago

I disagree a smart contract language is without value to business - but I agree it's speculative and unclear at the moment. The best we can do is look at cloud platform and programming language maturation/adoption to get a feel for what a decentralized app platform will take in time and engineering effort. The idea being we're a few years at least before language and infrastructure can be mature enough to have value for most users beyond earliest of adopters. The other languages you've mentioned are much further along than any "dApp" platform at what they do. Decentralized application platforms like Ethereum are a new space with new requirements but, as far as I can tell, necessitate a new language to satisfy unique requirements. The hot-take is that Solidity is probably going to take some big changes to make it much further. I've not been impressed with it.

root_axis 8y ago
It is useless at this time. There are no legal businesses that are now possible that weren't before the advent of cryptocurrency and criminal businesses still existed in the cash-only world (although they are easier to facilitate with cryptocurrency). > we're a few years at least before language and infrastructure can be mature enough to have value for most users beyond earliest of adopters There isn't really a clear explanation of why that would be the case. The bottom line is that smart contracts require a trusted oracle to feed data into the system, at that point, the advantages over a centralized system are essentially zero. There is no reason why anyone except enthusiasts, tinkerers and criminals would get involved.