Talk:Solidity

Solidity implicated in the recent exploit of The DAO

There have been multiple discussions and references in recent weeks to alleged/potential shortcomings in the Solidity language that might have prevented some of the security problems that have surfaced in the June exploit of The DAO. Clearly those reliable sources make the info notable, and so should be considered in improving this article. Let's start a list of sources here, which I will start here. Please add others. N2e (talk) 05:30, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Interesting points. I agree we need to consider adding these points for NPOV and general content improvements. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 20:00, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

• here is one: Ethereum’s Solidity Flaw Exploited in DAO Attack Says Cornell Researcher, 19 June 2016.
• and another: A $50 Million Hack Just Showed That the DAO Was All Too Human, Wired, 18 June 18, 2016. "Solidity, makes it really easy to make this sort of mistake ..."

That's because it's a super-simple scripting language not suitable for anything like real e-commerce. It's junk. 73.6.96.168 (talk) 08:19, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Merge with Ethereum

The following is a closed discussion of a requested merges. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no merge. Clear consensus against a merge. (non-admin closure) --Frmorrison (talk) 21:45, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

This article is really rather a stub, when chopping unsource or self-sourced material. Solidity really isn't that notable in itself, outside of the community of ethereum, and most sources talking about Solidity reference it as "Ethereum's language Solidity", implying people wouldn't know what they article was about without mentioning ethereum. I propose merging. 12.168.201.132 (talk) 04:42, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose Merging Solidity is a programming language which is not limited to ethereum. I added a little more content (the article is still a stub that needs improvement) showing that Solidity is also used on blockchain platforms that compete with Ethereum. It would not be appropriate to include this language in Ethereum, as this programming language is not exclusive to Ethereum. Its just a language for writing smart contracts. Here is the news piece I added https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/29813/sofe-berlin-swift-unveils-blockchain-proof-of-concept This swift test is not using Ethereum, it is running on a platform called Tendermint (which has nothing to do with Ethereum to my, albeit limited, knowledge). I have added a note over at Ethereum Talk to hopefully get more eyeballs/comments here. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 15:31, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Perhaps hypothetically it's not limited to Ethereum, but that's what it was developed for and what it's used for. Finextra is a profoundly minor source - David Gerard (talk) 19:21, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi David - I agree Solidity was developed for Ethereum but in the wake of open source many projects based on Ethereum will naturally jive with Solidity. Tendermint and Hydrachain are but a few of the early ones out during Ethereum's beta. Saying they're 'the same as' Ethereum is like labeling Litecoin 'the same as' Bitcoin. I oppose the merge. Jeffanthonyfds (talk) 05:55, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

• • And you're wrong - Eris Tendermint is based on Ethereum. There is no evidence of Solidity use that isn't Ethereum-derived - David Gerard (talk) 01:11, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi David, Eris & Tendermint have nothing to do with Ethereum, tendermint is separate blockchain considering its own token offering. See http://www.coindesk.com/tendermint-public-blockchain/ Jtbobwaysf (talk) 12:31, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

It started as an Ethereum fork, which is from whence it adopted Solidity - David Gerard (talk) 16:23, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

David, do you have RS to prove tendermint is ethereum? First time I heard that. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 16:44, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

There's no RS either way, because it's not notable and has no in-depth coverage whatsoever; the total coverage is one blog-level fintech newsletter. There's no basis to assert anything about it in this article - David Gerard (talk) 23:43, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

First I added some sources to show that Tendermint and Ethereum are different. Second, in addition to Tendermint & ErisDB which are discussed above I added some sources to show that Solidity is also running on other blockchains including Zeppelin by Digital Currency Group and Counterparty (technology). Its likely this list will grow over time. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:05, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

• • BS, Solidity is purely Ethereum only --Sigmundur (talk) 07:46, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
• Merge - if this article was cut to RSes it'd make a good subsection. Way too much primary sourcing, this doesn't have the substance to be a standalone article - David Gerard (talk) 19:21, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Hi David, I have removed some primary sourced content and added some WP:RS content (including some showing Solidity is a language used on a few different platforms, not only Ethereum). The article meets WP:GNG and it doesn't make sense for the article to be a subsection of Ethereum (as you suggest), as the software is also used on other blockchain platforms that compete with Ethereum. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 12:40, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose—definitely a programming language, with active open source community development, by apparently a rather large cross-section of developers, only some of whom are associated with the Ethereum Foundation. So, yes, Solidiy is a language for compiling bytecode that runs on the Ethereum EVM, but like many programming languages, it is far beyond the ordinary general notability criteria that we would use to support the existence of a separate article. N2e (talk) 16:42, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
  • That's a highly questionable assertion - I just did a reference check, and many fail verification, are primary sources or are just passing mentions that don't go into any detail at all about Solidity itself - David Gerard (talk) 18:05, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

• Comment after checking the sources I lean towards David's comments, the notability seems to be from Ethereum. Saying that, having a separate language article may be WP:USEFUL (as in tempting but not backed by policy). Widefox; talk 20:07, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose- Solidity is a notable innovation for writing smart contracts. I might be a bit more favorable if the discussion was about merging with an article on the Ethereum EVM. Solidity (and the EVM) is becoming an industry standard for writing smart contracts.Sanpitch (talk) 01:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose- Even when languages are restricted to single platforms in their early development, unless there is some design constraint in the language itself, the language will move off that platform as pressure to move code from one platform to another increases. Paulsnx2 (talk) 19:41, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

- Propose this nomination be closed Jtbobwaysf (talk) 13:19, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

- Propose this nomination be closed (2nd time) Jtbobwaysf (talk) 10:54, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Number of coins in totalCoins is wrong?

It says uint constant totalCoins = 100000000000; but also /// Endows creator of contract with 1m GAV.

So what am I missing, or is the comment supposed to say 100b GAV? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.66.89.99 (talk) 17:34, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Question for administrator

Could an admin please tell me how to close this green box section so we can add new talk sections below? I guess there must be some tag to close the green box, but I can't find it when I google it. Thank you! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 01:53, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: I'm not an admin, but I had just the amount of coding knowledge to close it, anyways. -- I dream of horses  If you reply here, please ping me by adding {{U|I dream of horses}} to your message  (talk to me) (My edits) @ 03:47, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

@I dream of horses: thank you! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:55, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Creators

Long list of solidity creators. Are these people listed in the sources? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 01:53, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Sourcing is not good

ref check: too many crypto blogs, book sources of questionable notability or reliability - there's been enough mainstream coverage that this article should use it, and probably academic coverage. Everything tagged needs something more solid - David Gerard (talk) 10:58, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Like millions of Wikipedia articles, better sources can almost always be found. Still, without building a consensus it's a little over the top to self-determine that nearly every source in this article is an {{unreliable source}}. Better would have been to use the cleanup tag {{better source}} which renders as . But I'd still question the value of overtagging an article by adding that tag to the article over a dozen times if you, who per your edit comment, hypothesize that better sources are "out there" are unwilling to add any of them???

The Wikipedia core policy is WP:V, not "perfect" sourcing in the eyes of any single editor. But we generally accept verifiability where we can find it; thus many small local bands that have articles on Wikipedia are often based on sources of the only publications that write about such bands, and those will not be the large media. It would seem that development with this (now, widely used) language in this still early technology space has a number of sources that meet WP:V. And overtagging an article seems to be a bit of the WP:IDONTLIKEIT variety. N2e (talk) 12:38, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm not self-deciding - crypto blogs are not acceptable sources per WP:RSN. They're just not reliable sources for Wikipedia purposes. Just add the reliable, verifiable, mainstream sourcing, or remove the bad claims. Frankly, they should have been removed already. We can give it a few more days, but it's been this bad for months - David Gerard (talk) 13:18, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

We are all self-deciding our opinions, and I also disagree. I removed some of the tags, in general those that are books (which David suggested were not "notable" books) as well as coindesk, which is a decent source and in this case is fine. This article is about an open source software project that spans multiple blockchain projects, and this software does not have a token (ie currency). Thus the conflict of interest logic we have applied to other crypto articles doesn't apply to this article, no more than it applies to linux, unix, etc. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 05:34, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Noting you are continuing to overtag as mentioned above here [1]. Please link to the RSN that states that these sources are not acceptable on this article. If you decide to open an RSN in this case, please ping me. Thanks Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:57, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Here's the RFC, which you could have found in 10 seconds as I just did by doing the search on WP:RSN. It's about as good as crypto sites get, and it's still not a generally reliable source. And you participated in it, so it's not clear why you're behaving as though you never heard of it - David Gerard (talk) 20:01, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused. David seems to be arguing that no "crypto blog" is an acceptable source when he says "crypto blogs are not acceptable sources per WP:RSN"

I went to that link; did not find any policy against "crypto blogs" one way or the other.

I continued. Found the more specific single instance of an RFC that David subsequently linked. That one RFC, looking at one particular outlet called "CoinDesk", found this:

"In this request for comment

1. "There is no consensus on whether CoinDesk should be designated as a questionable source.

2. "There is consensus against designating CoinDesk as a generally reliable source.

3. "There is consensus that CoinDesk should not be used to establish notability for article topics.

"Editors should be cautious when using CoinDesk to avoid adding promotional content into articles. — Newslinger talk 03:08, 21 November 2018 (UTC)"

I'm totally down for all that.

None of that says anything at all about "crypto blogs are not acceptable sources".

Moreover, it specifically says "no consensus on whether CoinDesk should be designated as a questionable source.", which seems to have been the only one single source site that was under consideration there in that RFC.

So all of the many (more than a dozen) inline tags of {{unreliable source}} that David had previously added to this article, an article about a programming language, do not seem to be founded on any particular Wikipedia community policy, guideline, nor even an RFC case about some site called "Coin Desk."

Am I missing something that you are saying David Gerard? N2e (talk) 22:18, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

I put it on Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#More_eyes:_crypto_blogs_as_sourcing/notability and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cryptocurrency for more eyes on the discussion - David Gerard (talk) 09:16, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I came here after seeing the above message. I agree with David Gerard and with his tagging. I am surprised by the arguments that there is no policy against using "crypto blogs". It is a fundamental Wikipedia policy to avoid self-published sources like blogs. And all those Altcoinnews, Cryptocoinnews, Finops and the like are essentially from that category. This has been discussed many times in various AFDs and on talk pages of cryptocurrency-related articles. The massive tagging might look excessive only because this article has way too many bad sources. The article needs a major cleanup. Retimuko (talk) 15:58, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

yep, that was my thinking - the solution to the tagging is to remove or replace the bad sources. It's been three months - is there really nothing that's up to scratch? - David Gerard (talk) 09:56, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

David, you also tagged the Microsoft Visual Composer corporate blog, clearly that is not a low-quality source for open source software. Just because you tag something (and revert when someone else removes the tag as I did) doesn't mean you are the sole decision maker of removal of content. Retimuko, I agree that these crytoblogs can be poor sources, especially when used to point to the notability of a token, but in this case we are talking about a software language that exists on a multitude of software blockchains (and has no token), thus this is apples and oranges in my opinion. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:53, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

That's a primary source as to the claim - it's not a third-party RS. And evidently, I'm not the "sole decision maker", you have others pointing out that this stuff really just doesn't meet Wikipedia sourcing.

It's pretty simple: Do you have third-party, reliable sources, in the Wikipedia sense, for the claims made in the article? This is a yes or no question, not a cue for increasingly elaborate excuses as to why "no" doesn't count for some reason - David Gerard (talk) 07:45, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

No, i dont have any extra sources for this article. Second, there is no prohobition on using primary sources for this article. Last, I agree that these cryptorag sources should be removed, except for coindesk which seems to be generally agreed to be iffy, but not an automatic delete. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 21:21, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

I added a couple of better sources today. 84percent (talk) 08:57, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

sourcing

@Dandv: we are not using cryptozines as sources for all crypto articles. They are not considered to be WP:RS. You also cannot re add the content per WP:GS/Crypto even if you disagree. CThanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 09:25, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Question about the beggining

Isn't solidity a contract orienteded language instead of a object oriented language? -- Anonimous — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2804:14D:72A9:82BC:2C8F:5EA4:FA95:2934 (talk) 00:16, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

"Solidity is familiar to any programmer who has a"...

Not only is this line uncited (and JS should probably be expanded to JavaScript), but it doesn't actually say anything. Having a basic familiarity with 4 programming languages is a weird and useless qualifier, those languages are extremely different from each other, and only one of them (JavaScript) is actually related to or similar to Solidity. And taking between "one and six months" to learn also means nothing, the range is so wide that it ceases to be a useful gauge.

Also, this line does not belong in the "Limitations of Solidity" section as it doesn't state a limitation and instead seems like it intends to compare it to other languages, which is already done in the Description in a more clear manner.

Benny121221 (talk) 23:22, 27 March 2022 (UTC)