Author Topic: How goes the Turing Complete side of things?  (Read 2199 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline luckybit

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2921
    • View Profile
  • BitShares: Luckybit
Any news on the programmability of smart contracts on the Graphene platform? Any docs on how to develop a smart contract in Graphene? If not, where could I learn more and create documentation?

Haven given it some thought, I would think it might be in the best interest of Graphene to not be Turing complete. Turing complete is not necessary, and the costs of Turing complete smart contracts are decidability, which impact security if you want to go with the security by correctness model, without any practical benefit.

I reached this conclusion after reading up on Tauchain which will implement a much better designed decideable model. Long term the benefits of the Tauchain model outweigh the benefits of the Ethereum model but take a look for yourselves:
http://tauchain.org/tauchain.pdf

I think before Bytemaster settles on a permanent smart contract system he should at least read the Tauchain whitepaper and study the implications of their design. My own opinion is Tauchain is more flexible, evolveable and for that reason superior but that is only because I don't see any practical necessity for Turing completeness since you can do every algorithm Bitshares could need without having it.

Where is their model actually defined? That paper doesn't really seem to say much..
That said I like the high-level idea about keeping your contract language simple enough to be able to prove correctness, and they definitely understand the domain.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16239hEjL_IgXYsk2I6RMjMKhmUte30leYI3jJ-Vgp3M/edit
http://www.idni.org/blog/code-and-money
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitionistic_type_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_functional_programming
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homotopy_type_theory

These represent the conceptual lineage of the Tau programming language more or less. Bitshares could benefit by learning from the Tau programming language being developed for Tauchain and making sure that the scripting language is dependently typed.

The primer is a lot clearer than the paper which is heavy on abstraction, philosophy, and concepts, while the primer goes into more details.

And they have code: https://github.com/naturalog/tauchain
« Last Edit: August 20, 2015, 03:53:23 pm by luckybit »
https://metaexchange.info | Bitcoin<->Altcoin exchange | Instant | Safe | Low spreads

Offline toast

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4001
    • View Profile
  • BitShares: nikolai
Any news on the programmability of smart contracts on the Graphene platform? Any docs on how to develop a smart contract in Graphene? If not, where could I learn more and create documentation?

Haven given it some thought, I would think it might be in the best interest of Graphene to not be Turing complete. Turing complete is not necessary, and the costs of Turing complete smart contracts are decidability, which impact security if you want to go with the security by correctness model, without any practical benefit.

I reached this conclusion after reading up on Tauchain which will implement a much better designed decideable model. Long term the benefits of the Tauchain model outweigh the benefits of the Ethereum model but take a look for yourselves:
http://tauchain.org/tauchain.pdf

I think before Bytemaster settles on a permanent smart contract system he should at least read the Tauchain whitepaper and study the implications of their design. My own opinion is Tauchain is more flexible, evolveable and for that reason superior but that is only because I don't see any practical necessity for Turing completeness since you can do every algorithm Bitshares could need without having it.

Where is their model actually defined? That paper doesn't really seem to say much..
That said I like the high-level idea about keeping your contract language simple enough to be able to prove correctness, and they definitely understand the domain.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2015, 04:06:17 pm by toast »
Do not use this post as information for making any important decisions. The only agreements I ever make are informal and non-binding. Take the same precautions as when dealing with a compromised account, scammer, sockpuppet, etc.

Offline xeroc

  • Board Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12922
  • ChainSquad GmbH
    • View Profile
    • ChainSquad GmbH
  • BitShares: xeroc
  • GitHub: xeroc

Offline Ander

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3506
    • View Profile
  • BitShares: Ander
https://metaexchange.info | Bitcoin<->Altcoin exchange | Instant | Safe | Low spreads

Offline luckybit

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2921
    • View Profile
  • BitShares: Luckybit
Any news on the programmability of smart contracts on the Graphene platform? Any docs on how to develop a smart contract in Graphene? If not, where could I learn more and create documentation?

Haven given it some thought, I would think it might be in the best interest of Graphene to not be Turing complete. Turing complete is not necessary, and the costs of Turing complete smart contracts are decidability, which impact security if you want to go with the security by correctness model, without any practical benefit.

I reached this conclusion after reading up on Tauchain which will implement a much better designed decideable model. Long term the benefits of the Tauchain model outweigh the benefits of the Ethereum model but take a look for yourselves:
http://tauchain.org/tauchain.pdf

I think before Bytemaster settles on a permanent smart contract system he should at least read the Tauchain whitepaper and study the implications of their design. My own opinion is Tauchain is more flexible, evolveable and for that reason superior but that is only because I don't see any practical necessity for Turing completeness since you can do every algorithm Bitshares could need without having it.

« Last Edit: August 19, 2015, 02:33:16 am by luckybit »
https://metaexchange.info | Bitcoin<->Altcoin exchange | Instant | Safe | Low spreads

Offline xeroc

  • Board Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12922
  • ChainSquad GmbH
    • View Profile
    • ChainSquad GmbH
  • BitShares: xeroc
  • GitHub: xeroc
Not so much documentation exists in that regards, I fear.
I still struggle to understand "extensions" that already exist on the chain .. @vikram @bytemaster ?

Offline VoR0220

Any news on the programmability of smart contracts on the Graphene platform? Any docs on how to develop a smart contract in Graphene? If not, where could I learn more and create documentation?
https://metaexchange.info | Bitcoin<->Altcoin exchange | Instant | Safe | Low spreads