Finally a question about Bitcoin that I could not answer.

[chriswilmer]

Jan, I'm glad you brought this issue—and its potential—to the fore. I lament the lack of a concise 'Bitcoin book' that is like the many computer tutorial and reference guides I've enjoyed over the years. Indeed many people now prefer browsing online media in wiki or blog formats, still many others (such as myself) find value in traditional guide books and compendia. There are many classic computer books ranging from the serious and technical à la Dennis Ritchie or Donal Knuth to the more lighthearted, such as Simson Garfinkel's "Unix-Haters Handbook." So where's the bitcoin book?

Surely, this is a golden opportunity for someone to write the next classic.

http://www.befuddled.org/befuddled

It's a very light hearted (but technical!) book on how Bitcoin works.

[e4xit]

Where is the Piachu's dissertation...?

Edit: found the link

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88149.0

[MarketNeutral]

Jan, I'm glad you brought this issue—and its potential—to the fore. I lament the lack of a concise 'Bitcoin book' that is like the many computer tutorial and reference guides I've enjoyed over the years. Indeed many people now prefer browsing online media in wiki or blog formats, still many others (such as myself) find value in traditional guide books and compendia. There are many classic computer books ranging from the serious and technical à la Dennis Ritchie or Donal Knuth to the more lighthearted, such as Simson Garfinkel's "Unix-Haters Handbook." So where's the bitcoin book?

Surely, this is a golden opportunity for someone to write the next classic.

http://www.befuddled.org/befuddled

It's a very light hearted (but technical!) book on how Bitcoin works.

Thank you. 

[activebiz]

There is enough info about bitcoin on the net/wikipedia/bctforum, plus its opensource

[flyMASTER]

There is enough info about bitcoin on the net/wikipedia/bctforum, plus its opensource

That is true but Bitcoin content is spread all over the place, it is inconsistent in content and form and not written in a way that you can enter "easy" and go to the "hard" stuff by reading further. I think a book would have some advantages on that score.

Imoh a good in depth book about Bitcoin would be a great thing. Even better if it gets updated continuously. Better still if its free (CC0 for example). Right? Right!
I have started a LaTeX GitHub repository (https://github.com/TBoehm/Bitcoin-for-Dummies) which we can use for collaborative writing. Also I have added a tip4commit (http://tip4commit.com/projects/660) in order to incentivise those "busy developers" to write some lines of text as well as enable people to directly support this project.

What do you think?

[wheatstone]

I have started a LaTeX GitHub repository (https://github.com/TBoehm/Bitcoin-for-Dummies)

Something tells me that title is going to result in a takedown request sooner rather than later.

[knightcoin]

Jan, just curious, is the book I suggested along the lines you are looking for? I realize it isn't out and so you can't really say with any certainty... but it's helpful for me to gauge whether people think it might be interesting to them based on the superficial details (i.e., the stuff that's apparent before you actually start reading it).

Chris, interesting way of communicating information. I must admit that I have never seen anything like it. I am probably more an old-school kinda guy who would look for something boring like this.
Kernighan & Richie's C book
or
Stevens TCP/IP Illustrated
... something that explains Bitcoin on the protocol level and not so much how bitcoin is used today, as this gets outdated pretty quickly.
Maybe your way is more suitable to the younger generation, good luck with your project.

or something like

Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C, Bruce Schneier ( ISBN-10: 0471117099 )

A book like that I would buy

[mczarnek]

Relatively easy to understand article, it was what made Bitcoin mostly click for me.

http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/how-the-bitcoin-protocol-actually-works/

[Jan]

aha... look at what I found:
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032281.do

Sounds promising. Estimated to be available August 2014.

[goatpig]

Interestingly enough, on French Amazon, there are 4 books (from french authors) on the topic. I presume the language barrier (rather high in France) pushed for the initiative. This is even more unexpected, seeing France one of Euro countries that exhibits the least interest in Bitcoin.

[harding]

Hi,

We've been working on a developer guide for Bitcoin.org which might be what you're looking for.  We have a forum thread, GitHub repository, and a demo site.

We're actively looking for writers and reviewers, so if you'd like to help, please see the forum thread above.

Thanks!, -Dave

[Bitram]

I guess there is time to write such book .

[Jan]

Hi,

We've been working on a developer guide for Bitcoin.org which might be what you're looking for.  We have a forum thread, GitHub repository, and a demo site.

We're actively looking for writers and reviewers, so if you'd like to help, please see the forum thread above.

Thanks!, -Dave

Looks pretty comprehensive. Thanks for the heads up.
Guess it is time to chip in.

[harding]

Hi, Jan.

We'd absolute love any help!  We're mostly guessing about what developers need to know, so feedback based on your experience with Mycelium would be hugely appreciated.  For example, what assumptions made by other documentation has tripped you up?[1]  Which BIPs have you found hard to understand?[2]  What important things just aren't documented elsewhere?[3]

Thanks!,

-Dave

[1] As an example of assumptions, one developer told us that the standard format for describing scripts is confusing to new devs because it doesn't mention the op-push-data codes that must be used.  It just assumes you know about them. We revised the documentation based on his feedback.

[2] As an example of finding documentation hard to understand, when I wrote a quick test implementation of BIP70, trying to figure out one particular sentence from BIP70 cost me three hours of time.

[3] I'm sure there are plenty of examples of undocumented things. :-)