Hi guys, I've been having an amazing time interacting with the SN community in the last few months (this is an alt account). Currently Looking to settle on a major in university rn and wanted to know what you guys think would be the best path to go down to develop for lightning net/bitcoin core. I'm lucky that my school offers a Blockchain/fintech engineering path for CS but was wondering if that really is the way to go. Would my time be better spent focusing on information security or database engineering? I know I probably sound like a noob asking these questions but if you guys have any useful experience or particular resources/classes that helped you in your journey I would love to hear it! Thanks Everyone, I love this community ❤️
Things I have really enjoyed so far:
- Mastering the Lightning Network by Andreas Antonopoulos
- Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper
- DarthCoin's Umbrel tutorial (he says it's out of date now but it is so much fun to run a node for yourself)
- Bitcoin Audible Anything Guy Swann reads I hoover up
- Unenumerated (I try to read one of Nick's posts a week and they blow my mind every single time)
- Dergigi (helped me reframe my fiat POV of the world)
Computer Science. Focus on algorithms, networking, security, systems programming (bitcoin core is C++).
Thanks for the comment. Was just reading the Job listing for the MicroStrategy "Bitcoin Lightning Software Engineer" and it is looking for
These languages are all pretty standard for CS but do most Bitcoin/lightning companies expect you to Scrum/use the agile method?
Most companies these days use some bastardized version of scrum. Pretty much nobody does orthodox scrum. They either say they do and then do something kinda weird and homegrown or they say they use some variant of scrum (or another agile methodology) but do something slightly different. You’ll see SAFe (“scaled agile framework”, I ran into it in banking), scrum, you used to see a lot of XP but it’s not really in vogue anymore, lots of other things.
Read up on scrum, get some sense of it, and then don’t be too surprised when you start somewhere that claims that they do scrum and really they’re doing whatever whacky thing they could get people to go along with.
In terms of languages, those are all pretty standard. In bitcoin/lightning specifically, you will probably run into C/C++, python, and rust at some point. There are also some VERY passionate scala users doing some cool things. I wouldn’t stress about it too much. If you’ve learned a few languages, picking up new ones just becomes part of onboarding to a new project or company. For example, I’m working on a project with a LOT of Rust. We have a bunch of engineers that came from kotlin or golang backgrounds. So they’re learning rust right now. No big deal.
Thanks I'll make sure to master it :) I mean I guess it makes sense that everyone has their own specialized version of Scrum. Have you seen anyone use Ruby? It was my first language but I still have yet to see any real widespread use of it. Excited to learn Rust :)
Yeah, I still run into ruby here and there. Amazon has a TON of ruby internally, believe it or not. I know some other companies that started with RoR and then got big and are still living with some ruby. I don’t see many new projects starting with it these days.
No kidding I thought it was all Python, Java, Javascript, C/C++ at the big tech companies. RoR/Ruby is a bit of a first love so it would be super cool to actually use it somewhere.
Wow just looked it up looks like Amazon, Home Depot, Boeing and Apple all use Ruby, my mind is blown.
Most of the ruby I saw at Amazon was internal tooling, build scripts, that soft of thing.
What's your opinion of Rust?
I heard so much good things about it and want to pick it up when I have time (don't know what project to do with it yet, maybe something with sockets?) but also am worried about getting disappointed because I have high expectations now, haha
There’s some learning curve around ownership and there are some weird bits of syntax here and there (and Geeze async traits WHEN). But overall I really like it. The way I describe it is it kinda front-loads a lot of complexity/pain that you’d normally deal with at runtime to be compile-time grief. So some things take a bit longer to think through or work out, but generally if it compiled it’ll Just Work and be fast as hell.
Yes, I think most companies do use some form of Scrum. I would say don't worry about Scrum. You'll learn it when you need it.
But maybe others can share more experience.
I have enjoyed reading the original material from Satoshi himself. It's really nice to see the project grow from idea to a useful thing.
Here are all the public messages and source code written by Satoshi Nakamoto in an easy to browse way: Nakamoto Institute
Thank you!! It's so wild we can read everything he wrote
Take courses in Coursera or EDX or any other similar systems. Tadge Dryja (one of the creators of the LN specification) has a whole course online from MIT https://dci.mit.edu/research/tag/Tadge+Dryja.
The videos are available here: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mas-s62-cryptocurrency-engineering-and-design-spring-2018/video_galleries/lecture-videos/
I am a CS major, and I would heavily advice against blockchain eng. unless you know it's strictly bitcoin, particularly because a lot of people in the community will value you out of your merits and hard work in projects / helping out, rather than a degree.
Even with that MIT degree, notice how many courses are about "cryptocoins" and even CDBCs. It's okay to inform yourself about those topics but if you disagree entirely with their idea would you like to be spending time in school taking courses on them?
When I went to CS school 15 years ago, if you didn't have a degree it would have been impossible. Nowadays PoW trumps degrees.
In the few months that I spent going into the rabbit hole I learned more about privacy, security, cryptography, encryption, math, than I did in school.
Thanks! yah I got a similar feeling interacting with any of the economics professors that would be part of the blockchain eng track. All of them are bought and paid for Keynesian's where all they can imagine of the future is a "digital fed" whatever that means...
Yeah, and we can't really blame them -- if you profit from the system it's very hard to come out of it, but it is especially hard to realize things might be wrong for others. I talk from experience because I kind of did for some time.
If you do go some route make a post on SN to let us know and keep us posted on your progress ;)
Thanks for the juicy tip!
Certainly can't blame them. We just gotta build a better incorruptible world.
That's a great idea I'll revisit this account in a year :)
Have you done all the bitcoin books 📚
Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas Antonopoulos
Mastering the Lightning Network by Andreas Antonopoulos
Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper
Fiat Standard
Bitcoin Standard
Mastering Bitcoin for Starters
The Age of Cryptocurrency
Bitcoin Billionaires by Ben Mezrich
The book of Satoshi
Cryptonomicon?
Is my book reading list so far (kinda new to Btc). Would love any suggestions of favorites
Bullish case for bitcoin
The seventh property
Bitcoin hard money you can’t fuck with
Ty adding these to the reading list. Thanks!
You might want to also add this one:
The White Paper
It's a nice way to actually read the white paper itself in book form.
thanks
Have you got this ? Is it made well? Rate it for a gift?
Yeah, I have it.
It's definitely worth getting it, and I would be happy to receive it as a gift.
Quality of the print itself is fine. It's a paperback, and the cover has an interesting design, with a hole in it, revealing a Bitcoin. It looks nice.
Wait, is this your reading list as in "you still want to read" or have you read all these books?
already read yah sry that's confusing
Wow, that's crazy. And I thought I am doing good with 3 books so far, haha
once you catch that bitcoin bug...
Once you catch it
There is no going back!
I can also recommend the Bitcoin Core PR Review Club.
There, experience is passed on from core developers to newbies.
Unfortunately, I always forget about it (damn, missed it again, lol) but the one time I joined it was really interesting to see how PRs are reviewed and tested
Woah this is sick! Maybe see you in there :)
Highly recommend this, still not sure how to contribute though still learning...
Atlas shrugged
The Mandibles
https://tomerstrolight.medium.com/the-lesson-of-the-golden-teacher-ee133f98efde
Thank you ❤️ Rand is actually how I found out about the Cypherpunks and lightning I searched "Real life Galts Gulch" and the rest is history. Cheers :) can't wait to read The Mandibles and that Medium Article you linked.
Hey! There are some fantastic book recommendations in these comments.
But I have to give a shout-out to "When Money Dies" by Adam Fergusson. I have not personally experienced hyperinflation, so this truly opened my eyes to the horrors it brings.
I picked out a quote to convince you to read it.
“Just before the First World War in 1913, the German mark, the British shilling, the French franc, and the Italian lira were all worth about the same. . .
At the end of 1923, it would have been possible to exchange a shilling, a franc or a lira for up to 1,000,000,000,000 marks. . .
The mark was dead, one million-millionth of its former self. It had taken almost ten years to die.”
Thanks! that excerpt is very gripping
You should also check:
https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information/online-offline-classes.html
I'm not much of a teck wiz but I would recommend focusing on LN related solutions. The world needs these type of innovative solutions that can mitigate the threats we face today because of the failing banking industry. Sending money from A to B without prying eyes and virtually free is something that will liberate the world from the clutches of banking cartel owned countries. Goodluck with your studies. I am rooting for you.
Thanks!
Went through the list so far, think we have a lot covered, here it is anyways:
Good luck, man !