I want to hear everyone's opinion!

What do you think of smart contracts?

I think they're dumb

one of most annoying shits.

So you have language that looks like ugly hybrid, its called solidity, you have your remix IDE and so on.

So what I think? It's... Paid decentralization and beeing sure nobody changes the code, I guess.

But what it can actually do? Manage data and cryptocurrency. You can do both from centralized point, but centralized point is prone to attacks, while p2p network is +- not.

It really depends on what you need. Just be aware if that's something you are going to use daily, you may find yourself spending fortune on it. And also if you lose your priv key and contract has owner, you are basically fucked.

If you are doing anything, and by that I mean any fucking thing not connected to cryptocurrency, there is 99% chance that you want to avoid it, 0.9% that you dont need it, and 0.1% that you need it.

Example of not cryptocurrency driven usage:
- if you have history of say important VIP delivery package written into chain and give warranty you dont alter it.

part 2.
It has some really annoying traps. If you have bug, you are fucked. There is no update mechanism (maybe except "contract proxy" but thats wacky workaround)

But to be perfectly honest, you should make your own opinion by creating some of them and trying to figure out how that could be actually usefull. Maybe you will suprise world.

IMHO best place to do it, is Kovan network for chain, but remix IDE (its browser based, https://remix.ethereum.org/) has it's own chain emulator.

Also, be aware network is not very reaible. Consider transaction fee spikes, spam block attacks etc. Oh, another thing is, that your code wont be executed immidietly but whenever your "call" to function (which is transaction on blockchain) will be accepted by network (so if you want to cheap out you may wait hours or more)

Plenty of disadvantages, few advantages. experiment, and create your own opinion.

Im someone who actually implements sc's, so if you have any questions, im happy to answer.

@Linux would have sworn so

@DubbaThony
- solidity is only for ethereum and yes it sucks ass, but check out daml for example
- it can replace traditional contracts and control external applications if the interpreter supports it
- you cant update individual contracts, but you can set updated rules in chain contracts (kinda like a global rule)

@Jilano yeah, like how mercedes markets the smart 42 as an actual car

Also to answer the question: they are great for automating big systems (like an assembly line) but not very useful for small scale applications

@ganjaman @DubbaThony Thanks for the responses! I really appreciate them.

I'm actually building an Eventbrite clone using Solidity just so I could play around with the technology.

I understand that for things like Eventbrite, it isn't really important to be decentralized but for example, would a Country benefit from using a voting system built as a smart contract?

I know that may be excessive but I'm trying to figure out when are smart contracts useful

Sorry if the questions are dumb, I'm a total noob :)

@redman lmao

IMHO SC and blockchain in general are solutions for non existent problems. I can’t see an application where blockchain technology is needed and beneficial.

@meseguer1998 in a voting system you need to guarantee anonymity

@coffeeholic I think you can accomplish that, only need to verify they are a real person before they're able to vote but once that's done you don't actually need to know who vote for who

@lastNick I disagree, I think Bitcoin has open doors for a lot of people. Myself included

@meseguer1998 Which people? What’s the application where SC / blockchain technology is needed and has advantages?

@lastNick I'm not sure about smart contracts in general. But Bitcoin is useful for people in countries like Venezuela, where they can't easily save their money in dollars and their local currency is falling

@meseguer1998 Overcoming national financial crises by using crypto currencies is a valid point. But PayPal should work as well.

@ganjaman

Hey, automation on production line...

Could you please elaborate?

I'm not looking for hole or anything, Im curious. Ive created few tokens for few ICOs on Ethereum Blockchain (most of them failed anyway but LOL it is what it is not my fault, my code works) including some wacky sh**t like whitelisted tokens that you are required to do KYC than you get signature that you have to append as param to your function calls nad chain learns youre approved (done KYC). Freaking Maltan law, man...

Anyway, I dont understand how in the world I would use chain for production line. Or maybe we are talking about some special use-case chains (like Kovan or Amazon whitelabel chain), not main chains (like ethereum) and how it's better than simply <your favourite DB> wrapped with <your favourite programing language>

@DubbaThony hey sorry i missed this notification.

Actually i had to write a 12 page paper about this but cant really share cause of nda. We are not talking ethereum, its mostly custom chains in this case. Ill try to summarize what i wrote.

1) cheap: you need an fpga design and just interface it with existing machines, after that they act as nodes on the chain.

2) kinda human-free: you really only need someone to write the cintracts and you have a semi-autonomous factory (im talking about stuff like assembly lines)

3) single point of failure

4) peepee hurt: cant remember the rest lol

Also its not strictly better than {{language}} but you need more developers to write the software if you want to deploy custom shit in every factory

@ganjaman

Okay, its not single point of failure I absolutely agree, but I dont really understand how it's cheapper...

When you will have public whitepaper please send it to me, Im more than happy to read it.