merrickread

We're only beginning to really understand Autism, Asperger Syndrome, and countless other cognitive states.

So programs of this nature are wonderful to see — they create the opportunity to learn from and work with people who think differently than the general population.

Yes, right now it is completely a glorified database. It's always been a database. It's a different database.

We're using it for compliant sharing of and collaboration on private information records between non trusting organizations and businesses. You could do this with something like a highly distributed Cassandra cluster. But some of the inherent rules to a blockchain allow us to provide higher security, higher data persistence and availability between nodes, auditable records, and accountable participants / contributors.

And it's not centralized, it's completely distributed - just not publicly available to anyone who can download a mobile app.

Couldn't agree more. We're using some blockchain technology to solve specific problems at my company. It's a part of our stack, but we don't mention blockchain unless someone specifically asks.

Blockchain is sensationalized beyond belief. I can't wait for the rose tinted glasses to fall off and we realize it's just a data management technology for specific use cases.

I think the biggest danger to the technology is that the community focuses on "blockchain will change the world" not "how can we make this better".

Solidity is just the first try. I built a couple projects and ideas with it - found it to be a very uncomfortable language.

On the other hand you have Hyperledger, it's "contract" code is Go. Widely adopted language that was basically designed for networking efficiency.

I dream of seeing a "security first" development process adopted ..

yup, the vast majority of these unregulated ICO's are borderline fraud and stand only to hurt the ecosystem which they're trying to enrich. I expect there will be a heavy correction towards the end of 2017.

I completely agree, it sounds like the forever present problem of wrong tool for the right job.

However it offers the potential to approach problems in a fundamentally different manner. I find myself incredibly curious and fascinated with how it works - then immediately rejected once I see discussions on HN about the blockchain.

According to your bio you've been programming for many years - is an apprehension towards something new a common pattern you've observed?

Amazing, we are using 5.0.x I'll see if that helps. Thank you!

We're in the process of harmonizing our entire team (9) to use Vagrant in a VirtualBox. For the most part it works, but we run into issues regarding VB memory consumption crashing machines. Minimum 8gb ram machine.

Do you have any advice on how to keep the memory footprint low?

The solution often lies in a good distraction