The Real Problems With Blockchain

It’s very easy to get over excited when you think about blockchain technology, this is because the use cases for blockchain projects are frankly endless. The blockchain can and will transform a number of booming industries, making our lives easier and helping us to live a little more efficiently.

Before we get ahead of ourselves though, it’s important to consider a number of drawbacks that current blockchain technologies hold. Let’s remember that this is normal when it comes to technological development. Take the mobile phone for example - yes, a great invention that made out communication portable, however the first mobiles were huge! Blockchain technology is the same in a sense, it’s new and thus, has many creases that need to be ironed out. Much like the mobile phone though, with a little patience and a bit of research, the product development will be vast.

Glenn Mariën has written a piece for Jaxenter that discusses some of blockchains more prominent issues, in a post titled: A Blockchain Nightmare.

The issue presented to us here comes within the development of blockchain technology and the tools that developers use to develop it. As it stands, the actual blockchain ledger is immutable, but in the words of Mariën, the tools to craft that ledger are not:

“With the advent of Ethereum, tools like Hyperledger and Solidity became essential and blockchain programmers the world over began cramming new languages. The ledger is immutable; however, the tools we use to create it are anything but. While some of these changes have built a better blockchain, the constant adjustments create damaging uncertainty. Young coders find themselves faced with a dilemma: If they devote themselves to the mastery of one language, they run the risk it will become obsolete before they find a job.”

The pace of blockchain development is a challenge for many new developers and coders who want to start a career within this industry. Because blockchain is so vast, developers cannot devote themselves to one development technique simply because within a month, that method could be replaced by a new and more efficient method.

Thankfully, Mariën highlights just how problems like this could go on to inspire developers to create their own fixes, perhaps this will inspire someone to create a universally understood, blockchain coding language?

“The Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard on my computer pinged and beeped when I turned the machine on. As I waited for the CPU to finish booting, I reflected on if only I could control those chimes, I could make my computer play a song. I taught myself Visual Basic, wrote a motherboard melody, and never looked back. But would I have found my calling if I hadn’t received that computer?”

In short, blockchain technology is fearsome and is at risk of leaving new and budding developers behind. As an industry, we need to do all we can to make the blockchain accessible to all in order to ensure that as this technology grows, the industry grows with it. We don’t want some sort of singularity where the blockchain becomes to advanced for developers, if anything, we need our young and upcoming developers to always stay one step ahead.