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Ask HN: Is it worth learning Solidity in 2021?

22 points by nicdc ↗ HN
I guess the answer will inevitably depend on how much potential for growth you see in ETH and/or smart contracts.

17 comments

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max_
Obviously not. A single contract call on Ethereum may cost you up to $120.

Ethereum is no longer practical.

Even so there are better smart contract languages like Vyper[0] & Scilla[1].

[0]:https://vyper.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

[1]:http://scilla-lang.org

noofen
> Ethereum is no longer practical.

Oh please, L2 solutions already exist, EIP-1559 in the upcoming months, and Proof of Stake is 1-2 years out.

anaganisk
> > Ethereum is no longer practical.

> Oh please, L2 solutions already exist, EIP-1559 in the upcoming months, and Proof of Stake is 1-2 years out.

Its just one elon musk tweet away for its price to go big bang.

schappim
Unfortunately, this is far too accurate.
max_
Your talking about promises not "solutions" that can be used today.

Proof of stake has been coming in 1 year for 4 years now.

L2 Solutions simply don't work.

Exchanges, that would benefit alot from L2 solutions have not implemented any because they know they suck from a security standpoint & other tradeoffs

RhodoGSA
Smart contract Audits and creation is pretty lucrative, with payment for work generally in a currency that's not in a period of 'Transitory Inflation'. I've been learning rust/ substrate tho, ETH is a bit dated by now.
rebelos
> payment for work generally in a currency that's not in a period of 'Transitory Inflation'

And instead in a currency that's in a period of 'Transitory Panic Selloff'.

jpgvm
Fiat currencies are manipulated! -> Elon tweets -> Surprised pikachu face.
RhodoGSA
haha, touche.

"Dad, how come we are poor" "Well you see son, when i was younger I traded all my real money for fake online tokens because i thought it'd make me a millionaire"

In all fairness, if you didn't take some profit over the last 6 months the fault lies within.

quickthrower2
You can do any kind of work and once paid convert it to ETH so getting paid in it is no difference (I’d say it is more inconvenient as you need to convert some to fiat and then deal with taxes)
RhodoGSA
Well, most blockchains pay in their native token. Most of these companies are have $B's next to their market cap but are very cash poor.
raizinho
Any advice for someone looking to get into the field?
RhodoGSA
Read the rust book, learn substrate and ink.
dhruvkar
I think smart contracts are here to stay.

However, I'd instead check out Cardano's (ADA) Plutus platform [0]. It's a subset of Haskell as I understand it. They have a online playground to simulate contracts [1].

Cardano also has a ERC-20 converter [2], so expect a lot of projects to also move to Cardano (given the much lower fees and higher throughput) when smart contracts are released in August/September.

0. https://docs.cardano.org/projects/plutus/en/latest/plutus/ex...

1. https://playground.plutus.iohkdev.io/

2. https://cointelegraph.com/news/cardano-erc-20-converter-near...

fsociety
Cardano contracts won’t be released until August.. optimistically.