Namecoin and Bitcoin development help/tutoring

[IvanIlyich]

I would pay someone to help me get started with Namecoin development on MacOS.

Or like, what do people recommend for getting started?

I have some ideas about...basically a program that creates and pushes custom transactions in Namecoin to store records. Or, if not in Namecoin, then some other verifiable, permanent, probably public ledger for keeping track of the state of a system defined by a history of signed attestations. If Namecoin is basically not working, is there an alternative ledger?  The number of records involved might get to be enough that the Bitcoin people would be understandably upset, even if it was just storing hashes of signed documents.

I'm just getting started with creating transactions etc. in Bitcoin.

What is the standard Namecoin client? I can't find it anymore. Can I install Namecoind on Mac, doing everything in the terminal? Should I use namecoinjs, and if I use something like that, do I not need a Namecoin node on my computer and broadcast transactions in some other way? (I only have some familiarity with js, and I don't really know what node.js is.)  Can I do stuff analogous to building a wallet in Python, or will the UI turn out crappy? etc.

thanks
II

[Bungeebones]

verifiable, permanent, probably public ledger for keeping track of the state of a system defined by a history of signed attestations.

I've got the same or similar need. I'm trying an install of namecoin to see if I can do what I want.

So far  ... I've started the namecoin -daemon and it is sitting there saying  "namecoin server starting".

The hardrive is going and the VirtualBox and Ubuntu 13.1 it is installed in are still responsive so I am guessing it is sownloading its blockchain. Don't know though. Like you say, docs are scarce.

[Bungeebones]

ok, I guess I'm started found it was running after all. I typed namecoind help and have all I need.

That was a sweet installation!

I installed it on Ubuntu 13.10 inside VirtualBox. I found and installed the ppa and it installed without a glitch. Awesome!