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Distributed Ledger Technology
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(last edited Jan 31, 2018 06:06PM)
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Jan 31, 2018 06:06PM
Discussion for our Feb 2018 book: Distributed Ledger Technology: The Science of the Blockchain by Roger Wattenhofer
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Just started in on this book yesterday. Curious ... is anyone planning on reading it?
Here is an interesting video on distributed ledgers.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2MHC...
The video leads up to the topic of Hashgraphs, but then doesn't explain them very well. If you want to know more search for Leemon Baird or Hashgraph. I chose this video because it is one of the shorter ones and is a good place to start.
I should get going on the book.
I really love John Coltrane, especially the free jazz and more abstract stuff he played later in his career. Once on a long trip, I was listening to a disc called Interstellar Space in the car and my wife looked at me and said, "are you listening to that on purpose?" I always thought that moment summed up something perfectly; I had ears for John Coltrane and she didn't. To me it was transcendent, to her it was honking noise.
That's my way of leading into why I'm not finishing this book. I tried very hard, but I have no ear for it. I think I gave up here, "Assume that there is at least one propose (t 0 ,c 0) with t 0 > t and c 0 6= c; of such proposals, consider the proposal with the smallest ticket number t 0. Since both this proposal and also the propose(t,c) have been sent to a majority of the servers, we can denote by S the non-empty intersection of servers that have been involved in both proposals."
This is probably a very good book if this is your field, but to me it's kind of like the owner's manual I have for my tractor. I'm glad I have it in case I ever need it, but I would never read it "on purpose."
That's my way of leading into why I'm not finishing this book. I tried very hard, but I have no ear for it. I think I gave up here, "Assume that there is at least one propose (t 0 ,c 0) with t 0 > t and c 0 6= c; of such proposals, consider the proposal with the smallest ticket number t 0. Since both this proposal and also the propose(t,c) have been sent to a majority of the servers, we can denote by S the non-empty intersection of servers that have been involved in both proposals."
This is probably a very good book if this is your field, but to me it's kind of like the owner's manual I have for my tractor. I'm glad I have it in case I ever need it, but I would never read it "on purpose."
There are many other books on this topic, but I don't know of any that will work in a science discussion group. It tends to be more of a business topic, unless you get into the technical details of cryptography.
Doug wrote: "Just started in on this book yesterday. Curious ... is anyone planning on reading it?"Yes I started reading this about 10 days back. I won't deny this is a mind-bender; and hence the slow rate of digesting the material.
I somehow breezed through Paxos and then got stuck on Consensus and had to google a bit. Moved on to Byzantine Agreement and had to do the same. So all in all ... requiring lots of online help.
Even after all this I am not sure I will get the feeling that I have truly understood all the theorems and proofs. Some of them are completely OHT (Overhead transmission !! Whoosh !!) But with all the helpful animated videos online - I feel like I am learning a few things. So am planning on completing it.
I have finished the book - though I flew thru it pretty much at 10,000 feet, as opposed to being buried below ground level which is where the author took you. However, I did manage to, for my own benefit, distill an overall feel for block chain technology and why it is a Paradigm Shifting technology for the future.I would rate this book 1 star because the author, a researcher academic, did not take the time and effort to do a good job communicating. I believe he just dumped class lecture notes to bound book form and that was it - you were left to mostly sink (below ground even) rather than swim (fly) thru it, arcane notes and all, with out the benefit of the lecture part.
My 10,000 foot view after reading the book is that block chain technology itself is 5 star, and has evolved to make huge ever growing and evolving decentralized organic computer networks (i.e. the internet) both "small world" and "scalable". By "small world" I mean short computation path-lengths bolstering timely performance. By "scalable" I mean distributed levels of hubs that allow unlimited change / growth and a probabilistic accommodation to outages or even sabotage in the network. So in effect the goal of block chain technology is performance and growth/change with probabilistic reliability and trust, which also relates to data/information stored in the network.
This all relates at a broader conceptual level to the emerging science of Complex Adaptive Sytems, i.e., systems that probabilistically adapt to the evolving ecosystem or go into decline. Signaling, feedback, and "reward reinforcement" are important parts of Adaptation. Signaling and feedback are certainly part of "bitcoin" algorithms, with the primary reward reinforcement being "bitcoins" for the miners. The ultimate Complex Adaptive System, our brains, exhibit signaling and feedback mechanisms, with the primary reward reinforcement being dopamine. Thus, from 30,000 feet, block chain technology is part of the Paradigm Shift making the Internet more of a Cognitive Network, COGNET, or global brain.
At it's core block chain technology is about collective judgement, consensus, and building trust among independent entities following mutually agreed upon rules. This of course has wide ranging affects including making such things as government more cognitive, adaptable, performing, reliable, and trustworthy.
So I finally finished the book ! Feel like I achieved something even though I am not entirely sure that is a justified feeling. Personally I would classify this as a study book than a book to be read. More like a textbook. Without the aid of google I would have been forced to keep this book aside.It is a deep dive (sink or swim) into distributed systems technologies and the mathematical underpinnings for the same. In fact the 2nd heading should read - "The Math of the Blockchain" and not "Science of the Blockchain"
On a very broad perspective I like the lead up in the chapters from Paxos to Distributed storage. It got me thinking about the math behind decentralized systems with the requirements of integrity, consistency and availability. (Kind of take these things for granted when making an ATM withdrawal !)
This is no introductory book and I think the real audience is probably math and computer science master/doctoral students. I think the author assumes some previous knowledge in the field. (Pigeonhole principle, Bloom filters...)
Still I learnt a bit although sadly I did not grasp all the theorems and proofs (and I did not expect to). It would be good to read a more readable book though on this topic though.
For an overview of this topic you might be interested in the Introduction to FinTech class at edx. I found the lectures to be very informative, without getting into the nuts and bolts of how the technology works.https://www.edx.org/course/introducti...
