Biblio

Blockchains are one solution for secure distributed interaction, but security vulnerabilities have already been exposed in existing programs. Obsidian, a new blockchain programming language, seeks to prevent some of these vulnerabilities using typestate and linearity. We evaluate the current design of Obsidian by implementing a blockchain application for parametric insurance as a case study. We compare this implementation to one written in Solidity, and find that Obsidian can provide stronger safety guarantees.

Approaches for programming language design used commonly in the research community today center around theoretical and performance-oriented evaluation. Recently, researchers have been considering more approaches to language design, including the use of quantitative and qualitative user studies that examine how different designs might affect programmers. In this paper, we argue for an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates many different methods in the creation and evaluation of programming languages. We argue that the addition of user-oriented design techniques can be helpful at many different stages in the programming language design process.