Blockchain stack #0: Introduction of distributed stack vs LAMP
I’m like a giddy school child that’s walked into a sweet shop and found £10 on the floor. Despite that not being worth as much money post-Brexit, I’m still excited! It feels like 1990 all over again when the internet was taking off and there was opportunity everywhere. Blockchain and AI is going to disrupt so much of the tech and business landscape, I feel like that child in the shop not knowing which sweets to pick for my next adventure. Some of this is inspired by the experiences I have had founding and selling two very different businesses (Texuna Technologies and Bathrooms.com), others by some excellent research and thinking that’s going on out there (e.g. Trent McConaghy article and Lawrence Lundy article).
I’m an entrepreneur, techy and CEO that still enjoys getting into the code and hacking away. I’ve been on a journey to learn the ‘Blockchain Stack’, which will go through lots of change and adaptations but which today can probably be summarised as follows:
Logic : ethereum
Database: IPDB, BigchainDB, Mediachain Labs
Browser: metamask, uPort
Compute: Geth, Golem Project
Filesystem : IPFS, Ethereum Swarm / FileCoin
Frameworks: Dapple, Truffle, Embark, Monax
IDEs: Solidity browser compiler, hack.ether.camp
Name resolution: ENS
If I’m missing core elements of the stack, or if any new ones come along, please let me know and I’ll update this. I’m also happy to add in any examples that I may have missed and you are passionate about.
Ujo Music is an example of a company already building on elements of this tech stack.
I’m writing a series of posts on the Blockchain Stack, giving simple but fully coded, step by step examples of how each of the element work both independently and collaboratively. Hopefully I’ll gain enough insight to provide a personal opinion of the pros and cons of each option in the stack (e.g. BigchainDB and Mediachain Labs) and how they might be more applicable for some problems vs others.
I started my journey on the Blockchain Stack with ethereum, mainly because it’s the ‘programming language’ or controller in the Blockchain equivalent of the LAMP stack. The first six posts are therefore Ethereum focused:
#0: this.title.print 🙂
#1: Getting started — Installing Ethereum Geth and your first smart contract
#2: Creating your first ‘domain’ name on Ethereum using ENS
#3: Creating your first blockchain webpage
#4: Using your first Ethereum frameworks and IDE
#5: Security challenges in Solidify contracts
These posts will focus more on the actual coding than the theory. If you’re completely new to Blockchain I recommend checking out this video, reading this 6 minute post, or if you have a day to spare, OReilly’s book adds more depth to all of this.
If you would like to contribute to these posts or have a suggested topic, please get in touch….
Thanks to André Hammen and Griff Green for reviewing.
There’s a team of us that have come together at Ziggify to work on a Blockchain play. We are in the exploration phase, so if you want to get involved or have an idea please get in touch. I’m based in London and enjoy chewing the Blockchain fat over a cuppa or a beer.
Originally published at www.ziggify.com on February 13, 2017.
