SteemMag – Steemit’s Weekend Digest #26: Coding For The Steem Blockchain: Meeting With Steem Devs – Exclusive Chats With Creator of SteemMVP… The Man Behind SteemitBoard….. and lots more

Welcome. It is with great delight I welcome you to this edition of SteemMag, (the twenty-sixth edition), a weekend digest for Steemians.

Every week, I take a look at some of the most important topics and have a chat with top Steemians who have expert views on such topics.

In case you missed it, here are links to Issue #1 , #2 , #3 , #4 , 5 , #6, #7 , #8, #9, #10, #11, #12 , #13, #14, #15, 16,#17, #18 , #19 , 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25

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In page 1, SteemMag had a chat with @roelandp, creator behind SteemTools.com – an aggregation of all steem tools and services. He has developed quite a number of Steem tools too

I also had a chat with @arcange, the man behind a number of successful steem and golos apps. His latest tool, SteemitBoard.com is an amazing gamification site and y’all should go check it out.

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In page 2, I had a chat with @uniphyscho, the steem developer who created AutoSteem.

I also had a chat with a couple of Steemians on Steemians Talk feature.

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A Chat With @arcange

SteemMag: You've created a couple of Steem blockchain based tools. What inspired you start developing apps for Steem?

@arcange:
I’ve been a developer since I was young. I always wanted to know what’s going on under the hood .how things work.

I started to look at cryptocurrencies a few years ago. I discovered Steemit after the project TheDAO failed on the platform Ethereum.

I have hooked to Steemit because the information related to the project was centralized and accessible via only one communication channel: the steemit.com website. User and developers were using the same interface to communicate and share information.

What was lacking at that time was a "user friendly" blockchain explorer, where you could see informations in a structured way (meantime, @jesta made an incredible work with steemdb.com).
I started to study Steem internals to understand how the underlying information were organized and how to exploit them.

That how the Steem.NET library was born and later SteemSQL

https://steemit.com/steemit/@arcange/steem-net-a-microsoft-net-library-for-steem-api-update-2
https://steemit.com/steemsql/@arcange/steemsql-a-public-sql-database-with-all-blockchain-data-update-2

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SM: You launched SteemitBoard a couple of weeks ago and it was fantastic. I loved it! What was the overall response of Steemians to this new form of gamification

@arcange:
I first launched Доска почёта (golosboard.com), the equivalent project for the russian steem platform, Golos.

I did on Golos first for several reasons:
• the platform was younger and the amount of data to manage was smaller.
• I have been very active on golos last time and became a top user on the platform. This allowed me to have a good visibility when Доска почёта was launched.

The project got a warm welcome and lot of enthusiastic reactions.

After fine tuning a few thing here and there, I launched SteemitBoard.com a few days later.

I honestly have to say I’m a bit disappointed on how SteemitBoard was welcome. I was not the mass adoption I expected.
I guess this is mainly related to the fact I’m less known on Steemit and the project launch lacked visibility.

Anyway, I am committed to this project and working on new more funny features.
I just miss time to manage both the project and my daily business work.

SM: What is your favorite steem tool developed a. by you b. by others?

@arcange:
My favourite own tool is definitely SteemSQL. I use it daily, if not hourly. SteemitBoard rely on SteemSQL to work, which in turn rely on Steem.NET. I eat my own dog food!

SteemDB from @jesta is the tool I won’t survive without.

It is a good thing we have 2 different database collector. SteemDB is private, but it helps me verify is correct with SteemSQL. I had a lot of contact with @jesta and we sometimes exchanged our knowledge. I also helped him to adapt steemdb.com for Golos (golosdb.com)

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SM: You've been on Steemit for 8 months now. How would you rate your experience on Steemit and what would you like to see in the nearest future?

@arcange:
I have to admit I became a quite a “steem technology” addict, both on the Steemit and Golos. I love the technical and social aspect of the platform, but I have to confess I am not an economic master.

Few month ago, SteemFest has been an incredible experience to me. All those people, from all over the world, meeting for the first time as if they were long acquainted friends … I never saw that in any of the meeting or conferenced I attended.
I which such event will occurs again to reinforce the notion of “community” among more members.

What I would like to in the future is a break, or at least a slow down, in the ever changing rules of Steemit. I feel it like if the initial contract I had with Steemit when I decided to invest some money, and especially my time, is always broken and re-negotiated.

I would like steemit.inc to focus more on a user friendly interface. The busy project is heading the good way but still not finished and I find myself in a schizophrenic situation using two different interfaces.

We also lack of private instant messaging integrated into the platform and have to rely on external environment like steemit.chat or telegram to communicate together.

It would be nice give a reward when you get stuck with a problem and someone helps you in the chat, like we do when we read valuable post or comments.

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Thanks so much for having a chat with SteemMag. It was exciting having a chat with you. SteemitBoard def rocks! 

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A Chat With @roelandp

SteemMag: How many tools do we currently have on SteemTools.com?

@roelandp:
121 tools

SM: What are the top 5 most used steem blockchain-based apps based on the voting system you have on SteemTools.com?

@roelandp:
Vote wise imho I would say:
SteemStats.com by @jesta, eSteem by @good-karma, SteemWhales.com by @heimindanger, Steemd.com by @roadscape,

Piston.rocks by @xeroc (in no particular order)

Special mention for @busy.org !
And SteemSports.com

SM: How would you describe the current developer community and how can we help devs better?

@roelandp:
I think currently the state of the developer community is great. Many initiatives have been started and some truly offer unique services such as SteemSports.com, Busy.org and eSteem.

The wide range of apps and also collaborations between various devs is wonderful. The JSON websocket based API is wonderful up to latest standards and the documentation is now also in great shape: https://steemit.github.io/steemit-docs/ .

Some new API calls for 0.17 hardfork are in the making for greater content discovery and simplified calls.

What could be better?

First: I think the developer options of Steem is already fine as it is. From day 1 when I started with Steemit I could build hacks & apps on top of the APIs, by making the blockchain and its features available through websocket and JSON standards. If I would enhance anything it would be the following:

• Direct link to the developer docs in the sidebar on Steemit.com
• More hackathons
• New features: a key-value database storage option on the Steem blockchain would be epic. New developments (introduced in 0.17 HF) towards forever update-able posts could mean we can use the "post an article" function for this, since we can update the values beyond the current window, before a post is frozen.

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It’s always nice having a chat with you. Thanks so much for having a chat with SteemMag.

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Check out page 2 for more interesting chats and features Thanks :)
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