[Bitcoin-development] Announce: Bitcoin.org Developer Documentation Now Live

[Bitcoin-development] Announce: Bitcoin.org Developer Documentation Now Live

[David A. Harding]

Hi all,

The first version of the Bitcoin.org Developer Documentation is now
live. The main URL (below) provides a portal to two main documents, an
overview-level guide and a more detailed reference. The portal page also
links to individual sections of the documentation and noteworthy
off-site documentation:

    https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-documentation

In printed pages, the current version is about 130 pages long in total.
Notable parts include:

* Technical, but still plain-English, descriptions of the block chain
  and transactions, including several illustrations:

    https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-guide#block-chain
    https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-guide#transactions

* A description of several different "contracts", including arbitration
  contracts, micropayment channels, and coinjoin:

    https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-guide#contracts

* Information about wallet formats, including what we hope is a good
  introduction to BIP32 HD wallets for people not already familiar with
  ECDSA specifics:

    https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-guide#wallets
    https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-guide#hierarchical-deterministic-key-creation

* A considerable amount of payment processing detail, currently aimed
  primarily at developers writing payment-receiving applications for
  merchants. It includes a step-by-step description of the BIP70 Payment
  Protocol using an actual CGI script example.

    https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-guide#payment-processing
    https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-guide#payment-protocol

* A description of every RPC included in Bitcoin Core 0.9
  cross-referenced with the other sections of the documentation and
  augmented with actual examples of the command in use.

    https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-reference#remote-procedure-calls-rpcs

* Not a section, but still notable are the over 2,000 cross-references
  in the text---there are so many that we hide them by default. Hover
  your mouse over a paragraph to see the cross references (in blue) and
  hover your mouse over the link to see more information.



Additions and improvements to the text are being worked on right
now, with an average of 200 lines of text being added each day.

We are, however, in need of expert reviewers.  Issues can be opened on
the main Bitcoin.org repository:

    https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.org/issues/new

(If you find an issue while reading the documentation, please click the
Report An Issue link on the bottom left side---this will automatically
add the URL and nearest HTML anchor to your bug report so we know where
to find what you're talking about.)

We also welcome suggestions about what to write next:

    https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.org/wiki/Documentation-TODO

All work has been done by volunteers---and we're always looking for more
contributors.  Please feel free to subscribe to our mailing list and say
hello.

    https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/bitcoin-documentation

And, most importantly, thank you to everyone from the -dev mailing list
who has helped us produce this content over the last 80 days!

Sincerely,

-Dave Harding on behalf of Saïvann Carignan, Greg Sanders, and all the
 documentation contributors
-- 
David A. Harding