Workshop - Programming Bitcoin in Rust with Tobin Harding
Details
Save the Date: *Tuesday, Sept 12th*
Start time: 2:30p to 4:30p CT
Tobin is reprising his rust-bitcoin workshop from TABConf 2023, plus new advanced material for those who already did the workshop in Atlanta.
Description
This workshop will give attendees a chance to play around with rust-bitcoin. The `rust-bitcoin` crate is a low level crate used by popular Rust Bitcoin projects like BDK, LDK, and electrs. The point of this workshop is to help devs get more familiar with the library below these great projects and foster cross communication between the various projects.
Tobin Harding will run the workshop plus any devs from projects using `rust-bitcoin` in the room also.
What is this workshop about?
We are running this workshop because we think programming Bitcoin in Rust is a useful endeavour but also because we think it is just plain fun. While higher level libraries do hide a lot of the complexity of `rust-bitcoin` from application developers it is still useful to get your hands dirty and know exactly what one can and cannot do with `rust-bitcoin`. Also this is a selfish push by us `rust-bitcoin` devs to get your feedback on the library and see ways we can make it better for you guys at the application layer. We have spent literally hours debating exactly what to call functions like `absolute::LockTime::from_consensus` to achieve our stated aims of making the library intuitive to hardcore Bitcoin hackers and newcomers alike while removing foot-guns so we can help devs help users hold on to their corn.
Proposed content, but we are totally open to other ideas. Basically we will turn up with a few ideas and a bunch of skeleton code and see how the room feels.
What would an attendee learn from this workshop?
Hopefully you will learn a bunch of interesting things in this workshop, for example:
- How to use the `rust-bitcoin` API.
- When you should be using the `rust-bitcoin` API and when you should just rely on libraries higher up the stack. EDIT: Perhaps you'll need to attend the bdk workshop later in the day to work this out.
- Things one cannot do with `rust-bitcoin` (come suggest to us why you should be able to do them).
- What developments are in progress at the moment (i.e., "Why do you guys keep changing stuff?").
- And importantly, that `rust-bitcoin` is an approachable project that you can definitely get involved with if it interests you. We are a bunch of devs just trying to do what we can to create a library that is useful and correct (with some pretty strong opinions about what is correct :)
Is there anything attendees should read up on before they attend this talk?
You could flick through the `rust-bitcoin` online documentation and/or clone the `rust-bitcoin` git repository and have a poke around.
Is there anything attendees should set up before the workshop?
You should clone the workshop repo and set up a bitcoind regtest node on your laptop if you plan on doing the advanced `pico-bitcoin-wallet` task.
Relevant Links
Social Links
Github: https://github.com/tcharding
Website: http://tobin.cc
Email: me at tobin.cc (Tobin doesn't twitter)
All the details: https://github.com/TABConf/2023.tabconf.com/issues/34
The workshop is free to attend, but space will be limited. Please RSVP to secure your spot.
Things you'll need: your laptop!