
Ethereum Development Reality Check - ryanstr
http://bitcoinist.net/ethereum-development-reality-check/
======
semiel
I have the top post in the reddit thread this is based on[1], and I don't
endorse the spin of this article.

> smart contract programming is complex and at the moment is lacking
> functionality

I disagree. Smart contract programming in the Solidity language[2] is already
remarkably simple, and there are great tools like Truffle[3] that provide you
all the necessary scaffolding for rapid iteration.

While it's certainly true that there are challenges and limitations in smart
contract programming, as I discuss in my reddit post, that's not the same as
"lacking functionality". There are many things that are already easy to do,
and the limitations are because we're working at the cutting edge of
technologies that are still being actively researched.

> Homomorphic Encryption

This is a nonsense red herring. It would be cool if someday we had homomorphic
encryption, but it's not going to be ready on any relevant timeline, and the
"lack" of it is absolutely not a problem for Ethereum.

> Once the transition to Proof of Stake occurs, however, will the Ether coins
> have to be re-issued?

What? Of course not.

This article is trying very hard to turn a discussion of future research
directions into FUD. 0/10.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4945us/can_we_hav...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4945us/can_we_have_a_serious_discussion_about_the/d0pe8so)
[2] [http://ethereum.github.io/solidity/](http://ethereum.github.io/solidity/)
[3]
[https://github.com/ConsenSys/truffle](https://github.com/ConsenSys/truffle)

------
Joeboy
What I'd like to hear is a really good example of a contract where Ethereum
would be an obvious improvement on doing the same thing without Ethereum. The
examples I've seen so far seem to work as long as nothing is disputed by the
parties, and then either default to favouring one party or other, or fall back
to human adjudication. Which doesn't seem particularly better than what we can
do without Ethereum.

However it does look cool and I'm open to the idea it makes sense somewhere,
but I'd be interested to know where that somewhere is.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I'm in the same boat. I Want To Believe. But I haven't seen a convincing
example yet.

------
mbgaxyz
There are fundamental problems with smart contracts over public blockchains
like Ethereum and Bitcoin. Can they be solved?

* No guarantee of transaction execution

* Turing-complete smart contracts are slow

* Scaling is a moonshot

* Oracles break the trust model

* Public blockchains struggle to stay decentralized

More here:

[https://makebitcoingreatagain.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/5-cha...](https://makebitcoingreatagain.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/5-challenges-
facing-smart-contracts/)

------
madhancr
yes, lots of issues to be resolved but the team and community is making great
progress instead of stuck in disagreements. check out this Casper progress at
57:00 [http://blog.synereo.com/2016/03/06/Synereo-
Update/](http://blog.synereo.com/2016/03/06/Synereo-Update/)

I am amazed at this open contribution and collaboration.

------
micwawa
By the way, if you have some presale ether and you think the price might be a
little frothy, Kraken makes it super easy to sweep your presale wallet. I
recently did this and had bitcoin on its way to my Circle account within an
hour.

