I agree that the protocol is the key. Its quite useful to think of the protocol for transactions to be similar to a transaction in the realworld. A discussion on terms of the deal, a transfer of goods/services, perhaps a lingering of a favour owed. Perhaps in the future every person will have their own "currency", with their own exchange rate with every other person they ever meet or deal with.
That's great and all, but I think just starting a new bank is not good enough.
In my opinion if we can combine some of the good ideas behind bitcoin with those in your list. Im not saying bitcoin is the right model. I think we need to think hard about what enables trade, growth and a society that enables not just a good standard of living, but also makes collaboration easier on large (think planet wide) projects. Automatic auditing should be built in from the ground up, transparency will allow trust between parties both private and public. Community voted policies that reflect in specific functions/code that can be made part of the transaction system to collect taxes that we can use to fund schools, infrastructure and other projects communities decide are worth funding.
I think you should learn processing and arduino, possibly before starting into web. There are already a lot of web developers, and not enough visual/electronic opensource devs.
Then with arduino, very similar environment. About $20 for a board. You can start blinking LEDs etc. Get an UNO board to start off with. File > Examples > ..
With an LED in pin 11 and Ground. Upload this code and rejoice.
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void setup() {
pinMode(11, OUTPUT); //sets 11 to output power instead of read in
}
void loop() {
// put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
digitalWrite(11, HIGH); //switches on 5Volt
delay(200); //waits for 0.2sec
digitalWrite(11, LOW); //switches off gnd
delay(100); //waits for 0.1sec
}
--------------------------------------------
After this I would recommend starting on nodejs/html/css since you can use processingjs to draw in your browser, nodejs can connect to arduino and allow for internet of things.
I would rather point him in the direction of a pic microcontroller, straight AVR (without the arduino middleman) or maybe even one of the cortex boards out there. Arduino has been made too "fool proof" with external libraries and hand-holding to be any more valuable for learning programming than the average hello world programming tutorial.
I respect your view, and cannot compare it to PIC as I have no experience with it. You comment makes me angry though, because I've seen this view before from others and I think it is false. Arduino has been immensely empowering tool to learn, a joy to work with and the community is incredibly helpful and supportive.
To back up this claim I am making, here is an arduino 3D printer I've developed from scratch. I mean we milled the parts we needed based off a reprap frame, I couldnt get the idiotic firmwares and code available to work so I started with an arduino and a stepper motor and figured it out.
https://github.com/fluentart/arrowprint
I'm a self taught artist that got interested in code so I don't claim to be good at it, as I really have no base to compare my quality of code to others except for the end result and the process of it for me personally.
Please tell me how a pic would be better? I am eager to learn.
