Just to be clear, just because someone is good at logic and math doesn’t mean they’re rational. Rationality means that one is able to correctly perceive the situation and thus set reasonable goals. A real case in China

Characteristics of a fanatical engineer

Keep adding features

They thought the bitcoin script was too crude, so they invented Turing’s complete EVM virtual machine. Later comers felt EVM was too low and introduced more advanced WASM, and even more fanatical lua scripts were crammed in.

Solve everything with blockchain

I think blockchain can solve a lot of problems, so I must build a really cool universal platform. If I just focus on money transfer, I feel embarrassed to see people.

Contempt of professional

Believing that he was better than a mathematician at inventing safe hashing algorithms.

Defying market

The belief that the price of a good can be determined by a mathematical formula, not the market. Such as running.

arbitrary

They claim to be a decentralized system, but they can block other people’s accounts. After being criticized, they impose new rules at the expense of breaking previous promises.

Not acknowledging the reality of the situation

Design a high-speed layer2, example1, example2, example3, that cannot implement onchain or offchain services for Bitcoin.

Abuse of metaphor

They define themselves as the TCP/IP layer of blockchain

How do pragmatic developers who are not cool at all do it

convergence

Bitcoin to this day is not Turing complete. However, through solid development efforts, several steady and solid improvements were made to support the Lightning network.

focus

Less ambitious. To this day, Bitcoin and Lightning are peer-to-peer electronic cash systems.

humility

Don’t invent new algorithms, don’t use unproven algorithms.

stay true to the mission

Both Bitcoin and Lightning networks have been trying to improve performance from a permissionless perspective while keeping their money safe.

Acknowledge that some problems cannot be solved completely

Bitcoin is 51% and BFT is 2F +1. What if there are too many bad guys? Take down the bad guys first.

Is TCP/IP the brainchild of some expert behind closed doors?

Here’s an interesting post with a brief conclusion:

In the history of the development of computer science, there has always been a constant dispute between the two voices of practicality and theoretically more advanced. And it’s always the party that makes the right compromise and meets the real needs that wins.

Blockchain practitioners, think about whether you really meet the actual needs, and achieve the appropriate compromise?

I’m sure you all think your ideas are realistic, so what compromises did you make?