buttercoin: how to get started contributing to the project?

[sflicht]

After the MtGox kerfuffle last week, it seems that some entrepreneurial folks have started a new project: https://github.com/buttercoin. The idea is for an open-source exchange framework that can handle heavy load with less lag and fuss than existing exchanges. Seems like a great idea! In particular, they seem to imagine a distributed order book, reducing parties like MtGox to the role of handling fiat transactions, although perhaps that is more of a long term goal. The tricky technological part is making a robust framework that can deal with an extremely large number of transactions per second (orders of magnitude more than existing BTC exchanges can perform). For more details you can see their hackpad: https://buttercoin.hackpad.com/. Apologies if I have mistakenly misrepresented their idea.

My question for the forum: how can I contribute? I'm an amateur coder, but with no particular experience with the technologies they are using for prototyping (CoffeeScript, node.js). The hackpad is a bit of a jumble right now, with just a bunch of design ideas, yet they still urge people to go ahead, clone the repo, and start coding. What's a good place to start?

[enki]

Hey sflicht,

One of the Lead Devs of Buttercoin here right now.

Right now we're actually finishing up some core code, and spending lots of time in meetings (so that we can legally build a reference exchange/hub). We appreciate the offer to help, but right now a lot of the work can't be parallelized just yet.

Sign up for http://buttercoin.launchrock.com/ so we can get in touch with you when we need help down the road. I can assure you we will! This is a huge effort!

Our goal really is to help stabilize the ecosystem. We want to make this work for everyone. We all win if Bitcoin wins!

-enki

[InspiredEye]

Buttercoin isn't a decentralized exchange, so it doesn't compare to them very well. The goal is to provide an open source trading engine (that one day might lead to a decentralized approach) and a stable, fast, secure, and legal reference trading platform built on top of it that can handle the kind of market volume that current exchanges can't.

The name was chosen since the domain was already owned by the creator. It's not set in stone.

[iteathen]

I'd like to get started on mining this new buttercoin. I've started building a buttercoin miner last night. I runs on 2 industrial size butter knifes. Going to making a 6 knife version next.

[greyhawk]

And how did you get the name "Buttercoin"?

It's because he desperately needs butter lest he starve to death in the next 10 minutes.

[InspiredEye]

We need a coin with better branding to compete with Bitcoin, things like buttercoin will fail to pickup just weird. Litecoin is the only one with a decent name and brand.

Buttercoin is a marketplace for crypto currencies whereas bitcoin and litecoin are crypto currencies themselves.  

I'd like to get started on mining this new buttercoin. I've started building a buttercoin miner last night. I runs on 2 industrial size butter knifes. Going to making a 6 knife version next.

Lolz