truffle

I've been working in the Ethereum space for a year and a half, so I know my perspective is warped, but I really don't think the learning curve is that bad any more. Solidity isn't a very complicated language and has decent documentation[0], and Truffle[1] and TestRPC[2] can get you writing automated tests against a simulated blockchain more or less instantly. It's still relatively early days, and there is a lot more work to do in making this stuff as friendly as possible, but progress has been pretty rapid. [0] http://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ [1] https://github.com/ConsenSys/truffle [2] https://github.com/ethereumjs/testrpc

The author talks about a mechanism for replacing parts of a script (e.g. maintaining it in production in spite of the 'forever' longevity of a contract). The Truffle Ethereum development framework has such a proposal in the works -- a simple 'migration' mechanism that will allow in-place upgrades of running contracts: https://github.com/ConsenSys/truffle/issues/138

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 homom