Ethereum’s Development Culture

So far we’ve talked about how Ethereum’s goals and technology differ from those of other blockchains that preceded it, like Bitcoin. Ethereum also has a very different development culture.

In Bitcoin, development is guided by conservative principles: all changes are carefully studied to ensure that none of the existing systems are disrupted. For the most part, changes are only implemented if they are backward compatible. Existing clients are allowed to opt-in, but will continue to operate if they decide not to upgrade.

In Ethereum, by comparison, the community’s development culture is focused on the future rather than the past. The (not entirely serious) mantra is “move fast and break things.” If a change is needed, it is implemented, even if that means invalidating prior assumptions, breaking compatibility, or forcing clients to update. Ethereum’s development culture is characterized by rapid innovation, rapid evolution, and a willingness to deploy forward-looking improvements, even if this is at the expense of some backward compatibility.

What this means to you as a developer is that you must remain flexible and be prepared to rebuild your infrastructure as some of the underlying assumptions change. One of the big challenges facing developers in Ethereum is the inherent contradiction between deploying code to an immutable system and a development platform that is still evolving. You can’t simply “upgrade” your smart contracts. You must be prepared to deploy new ones, migrate users, apps, and funds, and start over.

Ironically, this also means that the goal of building systems with more autonomy and less centralized control is still not fully realized. Autonomy and decentralization require a bit more stability in the platform than you’re likely to get in Ethereum in the next few years. In order to “evolve” the platform, you have to be ready to scrap and restart your smart contracts, which means you have to retain a certain degree of control over them.

But, on the positive side, Ethereum is moving forward very fast. There’s little opportunity for “bike-shedding,” an expression that means holding up development by arguing over minor details such as how to build the bicycle shed at the back of a nuclear power station. If you start bike-shedding, you might suddenly discover that while you were distracted the rest of the development team changed the plan and ditched bicycles in favor of autonomous hovercraft.

Eventually, the development of the Ethereum platform will slow down and its interfaces will become fixed. But in the meantime, innovation is the driving principle. You’d better keep up, because no one will slow down for you.