Let's create a foundation for competition among BTS developers

[jakub]

The thing is you can't teach people that stuff, it's too time consuming and costly. You can only give them the tools so they can use them and build something themselves. As long as we have a few tutorials, examples, videos, etc, devs will only need to see them in order to build something themselves.

Yes, but the big question is this: how we can have "a few tutorials, examples, videos" if CNX does not have the manpower to do it and we don't have the know-how required to do it.
Seems like a classic chicken-and-egg problem.

[Akado]

I'd suggest this instead: one of our community members (someone who has a good understanding of BitShares) teams up with an external C++ expert and they write a tutorial together in close cooperation with CNX.

What you're saying is like saying you're going to make a tutorial to turn a piano salesman into a world class pianist.

OK, I'm in no position to argue with that as I've never done any blockchain development and never looked into Graphene's source code.
@Stan and @xeroc seem to be more optimistic about this but none of them is an actual Graphene developer. BM's remarks have very vague so far.

That's why we need CNX developers' opinion on this - they are the only people who know the answer to this important question:
How much time and effort will it take to train an experienced C++ developer (without any deep understanding of the blockchain concept) to become an independent contributor capable of handling any of the tasks listed in our BSIPs?

The thing is you can't teach people that stuff, it's too time consuming and costly. You can only give them the tools so they can use them and build something themselves. As long as we have a few tutorials, examples, videos, etc, devs will only need to see them in order to build something themselves.

[jakub]

I'd suggest this instead: one of our community members (someone who has a good understanding of BitShares) teams up with an external C++ expert and they write a tutorial together in close cooperation with CNX.

What you're saying is like saying you're going to make a tutorial to turn a piano salesman into a world class pianist.

OK, I'm in no position to argue with that as I've never done any blockchain development and never looked into Graphene's source code.
@Stan and @xeroc seem to be more optimistic about this but none of them is an actual Graphene developer. BM's remarks have very vague so far.

That's why we need CNX developers' opinion on this - they are the only people who know the answer to this important question:
How much time and effort will it take to train an experienced C++ developer (without any deep understanding of the blockchain concept) to become an independent contributor capable of handling any of the tasks listed in our BSIPs?

[gamey]

Regardless of how complicated the chosen software stack for BTS may or may not be, tutorials for at least one "smart contract" that does something useful is needed. Otherwise having to learn the code base to figure out how to get that far is going to make an obstruction no one is EVER going to try to tackle. There are simply better options. 

When reverse engineering something, it is always better to start from a top down type approach.  By not having this sort of documention, you are forcing a bottom up approach.  Good luck there.


edit - I suppose maybe tutorial is not the right word. An example would suffice, but even then enticing people to Bitshares is tough.  The example should use FBAs I suppose.

Edit 2 - I used smart contracts because I don't know what BitShares calls this vague concept of a feature voted in by the blockchain or how that works. (Granted, I have also not read existing documentation.)

[monsterer]

I'd suggest this instead: one of our community members (someone who has a good understanding of BitShares) teams up with an external C++ expert and they write a tutorial together in close cooperation with CNX.

What you're saying is like saying you're going to make a tutorial to turn a piano salesman into a world class pianist.

[jakub]

Yes, @xeroc (if he wants) plus one C++ talent familiar with or interested in (passionate about) blockchain tech, working together, both paid.  That's my preference.  The C++ coder?  I think we should pitch it like a scholarship and get a boatload of applicants to sort through, I would trust xeroc plus one core dev to do this, if we don't already have someone among us who is willing and able.  I can help find candidates if y'all are at a loss for where to look.

Maybe if we openly declare how much we are willing to spend to have a comprehensive tutorial, then this will attract talents.

[lovejoy]

So what do you propose?
If it is the case that for an "uninitiated c++ developer" it will take years to acquire enough knowledge to implement & deploy any of our BSIPs, then we are screwed indeed.

Instead of throwing away money trying to teach something so fantastically complicated, you should recruit talent with the necessary skills already under their belt. Advertise on bitcointalk.org, that's about the only place I know where these guys hang out.

So you suggest to advertise on bitcointalk.org for a blockchain guy to come to our community, extract knowledge from CNX and write it down for us?
It might happen but it's not very likely to me.

I'd suggest this instead: one of our community members (someone who has a good understanding of BitShares) teams up with an external C++ expert and they write a tutorial together in close cooperation with CNX.
And this tutorial should not assume deep prior knowledge about the blockchain technology (only general understanding of the concept). This is how I see it.

Yes, @xeroc (if he wants) plus one C++ talent familiar with or interested in (passionate about) blockchain tech, working together, both paid.  That's my preference.  The C++ coder?  I think we should pitch it like a scholarship and get a boatload of applicants to sort through, I would trust xeroc plus one core dev to do this, if we don't already have someone among us who is willing and able.  I can help find candidates if y'all are at a loss for where to look.

[jakub]

So what do you propose?
If it is the case that for an "uninitiated c++ developer" it will take years to acquire enough knowledge to implement & deploy any of our BSIPs, then we are screwed indeed.

Instead of throwing away money trying to teach something so fantastically complicated, you should recruit talent with the necessary skills already under their belt. Advertise on bitcointalk.org, that's about the only place I know where these guys hang out.

So you suggest to advertise on bitcointalk.org for a blockchain guy to come to our community, extract knowledge from CNX and write it down for us?
It might happen but it's not very likely to me.

I'd suggest this instead: one of our community members (someone who has a good understanding of BitShares) teams up with an external C++ expert and they write a tutorial together in close cooperation with CNX.
And this tutorial should not assume deep prior knowledge about the blockchain technology (only general understanding of the concept). This is how I see it.

[cass]

i personally really like gitbooks..  there were no direct complains about.

But tbh ..it's not really on my subject, so a trust fabi's advise on this ..
(i f wanted we could port it to gitbooks as well i guess)

[jakub]

There is ample documentation and examples within the code and a community of developers ready to answer any questions those developers may have.

You see @Stan how it works in practice.
We don't even seem to be able to estimate the level of expertise / experience required as nobody from CNX (except for a non-technical person like you) bothers to comment here.

Honestly, I cannot image this know-how take-over happening unless you guys actively step in.
We need your guidance in this area. We need your opinions.

[monsterer]

So what do you propose?
If it is the case that for an "uninitiated c++ developer" it will take years to acquire enough knowledge to implement & deploy any of our BSIPs, then we are screwed indeed.

Instead of throwing away money trying to teach something so fantastically complicated, you should recruit talent with the necessary skills already under their belt. Advertise on bitcointalk.org, that's about the only place I know where these guys hang out.

[jakub]

I have given some thought to the matter of Graphene tutorial and here are my conclusions:

(1) Our situation is quite similar to Android - we don't need to teach people a new programming language, we only need to teach them how to use a known language in a very specific environment.

Sorry, this is nonsense. You propose to teach an uninitiated c++ developer something which takes years to master. This is not possible within the budget.

So what do you propose?
If it is the case that for an "uninitiated c++ developer" it will take years to acquire enough knowledge to implement & deploy any of our BSIPs, then we are screwed indeed.

[monsterer]

I have given some thought to the matter of Graphene tutorial and here are my conclusions:

(1) Our situation is quite similar to Android - we don't need to teach people a new programming language, we only need to teach them how to use a known language in a very specific environment.

Sorry, this is nonsense. You propose to teach an uninitiated c++ developer something which takes years to master. This is not possible within the budget.

[jakub]

This is what Ethereum currently has:
https://ethereum.gitbooks.io/frontier-guide/content/

Very simple but appears to be quite practical.
It has a search utility which is another important feature of a good tutorial.

Nice find .. i can definitely improve our stuff on that!

I wish we could ask CNX to translate those Ethereum examples into their Graphene equivalents:
https://ethereum.gitbooks.io/frontier-guide/content/contract_tutorials.html
This would be a good starting point.

Generally I think it's a good idea to write the tutorial by comparing Ethereum's approach to ours.
In a friendly way, not trying to prove our superiority, but rather use Ethereum as a background.

[xeroc]

For those that haven't noticed .. there is a tutorial section for bitshares already:
http://docs.bitshares.eu/bitshares/tutorials/index.html