Mastering Bitcoin By Andrea, a disappointment ?

[seriouscoin]

Anyone here bought the book?

The reviews are not good : http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032281.do

I think those reviews are legit. Anyone feel the same?

[remotemass]

I think it is good to better understand the bitcoin protocol because it has a very hands-on approach with exercises in Python that will make you understand a lot of the bitcoin internals.
But to understand the bitcoin-Qt client I don't think it is ideal.
For me the ideal book would be one that leveraged your C++ while teaching you to understand a simplified version of a bitcoin client in C++ with a lot of diagrams.
I am a visual learner so I have difficulty understanding things like STL map and multimap containers without diagrams.
My C++ is good enough to understand 95% of a C++ video tutorial like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rub-JsjMhWY

But still I expect a book to help me with C++ for better understanding of the bitcoin clients code.
Because it gets really difficult without diagrams, comments, C++ leverage and visual roadmap to get to grips with the clients' code.

I give Mastering Bitcoin five starts, though. It is very helpful and sheds a lot of help on the subject.
Much more is necessary. But is good achievement, and may help others come up with more good stuff.

[redhawk979]

There were a bunch of posts on Reddit about how a lot of the scripts Andreas put in his book would literally lock a user out from their Bitcoins forever.

[Brewins]

There were a bunch of posts on Reddit about how a lot of the scripts Andreas put in his book would literally lock a user out from their Bitcoins forever.

So it is more a troll book than a teaching book?

If it is true then the author should at least publish some warnings and erratas about it

[zlatanBorec]

There were a bunch of posts on Reddit about how a lot of the scripts Andreas put in his book would literally lock a user out from their Bitcoins forever.

hy redhawk!!!

but are you sayng there are a lot of trash scripts??

i think who you can advise us with a good book...

do you have a better choise???

thanks!!!

[jbrnt]

Andreas wrote a book? Have not read this book, but have watched a few of his talks in youtube. He is very knowledgable about bitcoin and has a great vision of bitcoin in the future. I think he wants to talk about too many things and it's still a work in progress. Later editions will be a good read.

[redhawk979]

There were a bunch of posts on Reddit about how a lot of the scripts Andreas put in his book would literally lock a user out from their Bitcoins forever.

So it is more a troll book than a teaching book?

If it is true then the author should at least publish some warnings and erratas about it

I don't necessarily know that is true, but people pointed out he was using OP codes that haven't been usable in forever, and one of the example scripts would prevent a user from gaining access to their Bitcoins after they made the transaction.

[slacknation]

Andreas wrote a book? Have not read this book, but have watched a few of his talks in youtube. He is very knowledgable about bitcoin and has a great vision of bitcoin in the future. I think he wants to talk about too many things and it's still a work in progress. Later editions will be a good read.

he's a good talker, not so much of a doer. better to give this book a miss

[doof]

Andreas wrote a book? Have not read this book, but have watched a few of his talks in youtube. He is very knowledgable about bitcoin and has a great vision of bitcoin in the future. I think he wants to talk about too many things and it's still a work in progress. Later editions will be a good read.

he's a good talker, not so much of a doer. better to give this book a miss

I have referenced it a bit, when building transactions and some linux stuff.

[Beliathon]

Expectation leads to disappointment.

[oblivi]

I saw his interview in the Joe Rogan podcast and he said the first part was easy and then it got pretty technical.