Intro
Many have seen my posts on Tauchain and I have not posted on it in a while because like everyone else I'm waiting for additional information in the form of the whitepaper. Many also have noticed that Tezos is about to launch and wonder about it. This particular blogpost is philosophical and will discuss the "long game" approach to design and why I believe Tauchain and to a lesser extend Tezos are the two best designed platforms in cryptospace.
The species which is the most adaptable is the most likely to survive in nature
The universe is a harsh place, and life is very fragile. When we study the most successful species we can see that the species which adapt quickly and effectively to a changing environment are the most likely to survive. If we look at the human species we can see that it is our brain, our neocortex, which has allowed us to survive and thrive. If we look at fungus, bacteria, or roaches, we will see that they are nearly indestructible not because each one is individually very smart but because of the rate they multiple and adapt. In a sense, human beings did not have the advantage of being the most naturally adaptable or evolveable species but we discovered written language which allowed us to create a way to store our collective knowledge.
Tauchain and the shared knowledge base represent collective knowledge
On the topic of collective knowledge, Tauchain is very much a big advancement just as the Internet or written language was big. In a sense it will allow any of us, including non-human participants and bots, to add to a collective knowledge base. This collective knowledge base is the shared knowledge base that all can contribute to and access as long as they use the right language to do so. Tau Meta Language (TML) is that language which will allow the cross communication of all participants, human, non-human animal, machine, to feed into and extract from the the same knowledge. Just as written language was critical for advancing the species, this in my opinion will be a significant step forward if we get it right. It is for these reasons that the pace of research and development is slow and methodical compared to other projects which need not be mentioned here.
Tauchain and Tezos include the self amending ledger property from the start
Both Tauchain and Tezos will have total flexibility to adapt. It will be the case that Tauchain and Tezos will have self amending capabilities but they diverge in how they approach it. We do not yet know which approach will be better but we do know features are similar and capabilities similar. In the self, this is like giving a species the ability to rewrite it's own DNA on the fly without having to go through many dangerous mutations. In a sense, this is less expensive than having to go through hard works, experience accidents like TheDAO, etc. This is a feature many are underestimating, or don't entirely understand, but I would say if you believe every blockchain requires a constitution, or if you think we need a way to rewrite the rules without ever having to hardfork, then you will appreciate this from a technical and social point of view.
Tauchain and Tezos put security first in the design
Both projects are similar in focusing on security. It's not enough to simply give people the power to create scripts without security guarantees. Tezos relies on functional programming to produce a higher quality of software engineering than is currently seen. Correct by construction on the other hand is an expensive approach and when done manually it likely will raise development costs. Tauchain protects security by a similar approach but with the addition of automation in the form of program synthesis and a much easier programming language. The shared knowledge base and program synthesis are the key distinguishing features and in my opinion if Tauchain can get the program synthesis to work, then even elementary children will be able to contribute to software upgrades and design. Tauchain will utilize constrained natural language / controlled natural language so communicating will be as simple as possible but this is what TML is about and I will not go into detail here as the paper will describe it more accurately than I can.
Tauchain and Tezos maximize their design for evolvability
Just as Dash is maximized for privacy, just like Ethereum is maximized for flexibility, just like Graphene and EOS are maximized for performance, Tauchain and Tezos are maximized for evolability and adaptability. People are currently underestimating what this means but if you have a technology which is able to evolve to take the form and shape of any competing technology which comes along with a better algorithm, a better design, a better idea, then your platform will survive. If you can evolve while remaining secure, even if it means sacrificing a little bit of flexibility in how you can evolve, then you don't lose very much.
Tezos as far as I know is Turing complete. Tauchain in the latest design includes TML, and TML is a meta language which means it will be up to the developer to decide if their project needs to be Turing complete or in for lack of a better words a restricted mode. Whether or not it is Turing complete, what matters is the ability to do stuff such as formal verification, proof checking, model checking, and similar features, which Tezos and Tauchain will both be capable of from the beginning, from the foundation, unlike Ethereum which in my opinion and the opinion of others for lack of better words, messed up.
Conclusion
Designs are really about tradeoffs and priorities. In each design we can see different tradeoffs in exchange for different gains or losses in certain areas. I think that Tauchain and Tezos have the best balance of tradeoffs currently.
My conclusion is that if possible I intend to buy Tezos to the maximum extent that I can afford. If I cannot afford to buy, then I'll seek ways to earn it directly or indirectly so that I can get a stake. I would say while Tezos does have some short comings, it is a significant step up from Ethereum and from a technical perspective more ready for prime time. The only problem I see with Tezos is that the cost of development will probably be high because not many people know functional programming languages and the tools likely will not be very good for people who want to get into it, but if you can work with OCaml then you should be okay. And of course I'm a stakeholder in Agoras which is a project of Tauchain, but Tauchain does not have any direct token, so the best way to become a stakeholder in it is to buy the Agoras token on Bittrex, stockpile your stake, and then help the main developer Ohad in the ways that he needs to get the project completed.