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Show HN: Bit v0.5.0 – Bitcoin made easy, now with SegWit support

63 points by ofek 8y ago

mkl 8y ago
I'm afraid I don't have anything substantive to say, but why did you give it a name that is almost completely ungooglable? It means people trying to use the library can't easily find help. I have the same problem with the graphics language Asymptote - finding examples and StackExchange questions is sometimes just not possible, even though they exist.
- pavlov 8y ago
  There are two common kinds of bad names in programming tools: 1) The descriptive where branding would be useful. The line of thought is something like this: "Apple gives everything such simple and obvious names. Their spreadsheet is simply 'Numbers'. I know — I'll call my new general-purpose programming language 'Code.'" 2) The branded where descriptiveness would be useful. Maybe I've built yet another HTTPS client library for language X with some kind of event-handling twist or whatever? I could call it 'pavlov-http' or 'evented-foobar-http'... But instead I'll name it 'robyzowitck' after my favorite Slobonian fantasy literature monster. Now, when person X uses my HTTP library and person Y inherits the project, they'll have to google what this library actually does, and briefly hate me for giving a silly brand name to a pedestrian utility.
aboutruby 8y ago
Seems more of an meta-APIs library: - bitcoinfees.earn.com for the fees - bitpay.com (then blockchain.info if bitpay fails) for the rates - bitpay / smartbit.com / blockchain for balance and transactions - And then a lot of functions mainly used to create transactions it seems (I'm not a bitcoin expert) (utils might the common denominator of all software projects :) ) (also the repetition of methods made me think of "define_method" in ruby) Pretty solid project! And great name IMHO, people will just google "bit github" (pretty hard to find a unique meaningful name these days), you even got the name in pypi: https://pypi.org/project/bit https://pypi.org/project/bit.
- solidasparagus 8y ago
  The name is cool, but not great in the age of Google. I would suggest also having a slightly longer name that is more unique - the way that the Go programming language has 'Golang'.
intelliderp 8y ago
Easy to use offline transactions are huge. Thanks for the great work!
- bmking 8y ago
  Features on Bit's "soon-to-be released feature list" are PSBT and watch-only keys to make offline signing even easier!
- caprese 8y ago
  I agree There are a lot of underused utilities of the bitcoin protocol that would change user experience and perception for all blockchain-based digital currencies.
drexlspivey 8y ago
If you want to dive into the bitcoin internals there is this Python library that implements a lot of the protocol stuff using only the standard library https://github.com/mcdallas/cryptotools https://github.com/mcdallas/cryptotools

63 points by ofek 8y ago

mkl 8y ago

I'm afraid I don't have anything substantive to say, but why did you give it a name that is almost completely ungooglable? It means people trying to use the library can't easily find help. I have the same problem with the graphics language Asymptote - finding examples and StackExchange questions is sometimes just not possible, even though they exist.

pavlov 8y ago
There are two common kinds of bad names in programming tools: 1) The descriptive where branding would be useful. The line of thought is something like this: "Apple gives everything such simple and obvious names. Their spreadsheet is simply 'Numbers'. I know — I'll call my new general-purpose programming language 'Code.'" 2) The branded where descriptiveness would be useful. Maybe I've built yet another HTTPS client library for language X with some kind of event-handling twist or whatever? I could call it 'pavlov-http' or 'evented-foobar-http'... But instead I'll name it 'robyzowitck' after my favorite Slobonian fantasy literature monster. Now, when person X uses my HTTP library and person Y inherits the project, they'll have to google what this library actually does, and briefly hate me for giving a silly brand name to a pedestrian utility.

aboutruby 8y ago

Seems more of an meta-APIs library: - bitcoinfees.earn.com for the fees - bitpay.com (then blockchain.info if bitpay fails) for the rates - bitpay / smartbit.com / blockchain for balance and transactions - And then a lot of functions mainly used to create transactions it seems (I'm not a bitcoin expert) (utils might the common denominator of all software projects :) ) (also the repetition of methods made me think of "define_method" in ruby) Pretty solid project! And great name IMHO, people will just google "bit github" (pretty hard to find a unique meaningful name these days), you even got the name in pypi: https://pypi.org/project/bit https://pypi.org/project/bit.

solidasparagus 8y ago
The name is cool, but not great in the age of Google. I would suggest also having a slightly longer name that is more unique - the way that the Go programming language has 'Golang'.

intelliderp 8y ago

Easy to use offline transactions are huge. Thanks for the great work!

bmking 8y ago
Features on Bit's "soon-to-be released feature list" are PSBT and watch-only keys to make offline signing even easier!
caprese 8y ago
I agree There are a lot of underused utilities of the bitcoin protocol that would change user experience and perception for all blockchain-based digital currencies.

drexlspivey 8y ago

If you want to dive into the bitcoin internals there is this Python library that implements a lot of the protocol stuff using only the standard library https://github.com/mcdallas/cryptotools https://github.com/mcdallas/cryptotools