Tang Xianjie meets blockchain: if you want to raise your salary, you must also change the world | Dialogue with MVP

What can blockchain bring?

For Tang Xianjie, it is the practical benefit of "salary increase" and the spiritual satisfaction of "changing the world".

Tang Xianjie is the blockchain system architect of Wanglian Technology, with more than 10 years of technical experience. After coming into contact with the blockchain and the FISCO BCOS open source community, with the help of community partners, he successfully completed the upgrade of the company's products and received a salary increase; also because he submitted PR in the FISCO BCOS code repository, actively answered questions from the technical group, and contributed For open source contributions such as high-quality technical tutorials, he won the title of FISCO BCOS MVP, and then became a "blockchain expert" in the circle of friends, gaining more opportunities to socialize and improve.

However, Tang Xianjie pays more attention to the sense of value and identity brought by the blockchain than the improvement of these practical benefits.

"If I can help companies improve trust relationships, reduce trust costs, and increase productivity through blockchain technology, whether the project can be successful or not, I think it's very meaningful," said Tang Xianjie.

After entering the field of blockchain, Tang Xianjie realized that this is a technology that can "drive business". His Internet thinking was greatly impacted, and he changed his motto to "Code is law!". He really sees the actual value that blockchain can bring to the society and the public, which makes him feel more identified and valued in the work he is engaged in.

To use a sentence from his favorite song "Change Yourself", it is "The strength of you and me can also change the world."

The following is the transcript of Tang Xianjie's interview:

It turns out that technology can also drive business, and the sense of achievement in technology is more abundant

1. How did you get involved with the blockchain? Why recognize and love blockchain technology?

I am an Internet technology myself, so after the rise of the blockchain, I will think about why the blockchain is popular and what is the rationale. I really liked the blockchain because I took the public class "Blockchain Technology and Application" by Professor Xiao Zhen of Peking University, which had a great impact on my original Internet thinking. It turns out that there is such a technology that can achieve something that was impossible before, which is very attractive to me. Moreover, blockchain technology is a multi-disciplinary technical field involving information technology, economics, psychology, etc. In the context of new infrastructure, blockchain can play a very good role as a technical adhesive.

Another important reason why I like blockchain is that it brings me more sense of value. In the past, software or systems were all business-driven technologies. What kind of products the operation wants to make, we will meet the corresponding functions, basically the technical personnel have no right to speak. There is a popular saying in our circle, "Talk is cheap, show me the code", that is, instead of discussing the solution with us, it is better to show us the code directly.

After learning the blockchain, I discovered that business can be driven by technology. Smart contracts have a legal-like effect. Everyone has a consensus and is automatically executed. This makes me think that blockchain technology can also subvert the world and subvert thinking, just like the industrial revolution used technology to change the world, so my motto has become "code is law!".

2. The VoneBaaS platform developed by your company Wanglian Technology uses FISCO BCOS as the underlying chain. From your point of view, what is the main reason for choosing FISCO BCOS?

The VoneBaaS product developed by Wanglian Technology last year needs to expand the bottom chain. In the context of the localization of blockchain, we compared many mainstream open source alliance chain platforms and found that the FISCO BCOS community documentation is very detailed, with a "one body and two wings" architecture and groups. The model is very compatible with the business, the components are easier to use, the ecology is also very complete, and the community is very active.

Another important point is that the update frequency and problem solving speed of FISCO BCOS are very fast. We need such a platform to support rapid product iteration. The bottom chain of the blockchain used by the company has many limitations, such as the ecology is not so active, and many things are difficult to implement. So the company finally chose FISCO BCOS as the underlying chain, and I joined the community accordingly.

In the future, we need to explore the broader application space of blockchain together

3. What application scenarios do you think blockchain is more suitable for?

From the perspective of the overall development of the blockchain, I think that the blockchain has not yet reached the stage of explosion and maturity, and the industry scale of the overall blockchain needs to be improved. In addition to government departments and state-owned enterprises, there are not many non-blockchain application scenarios. There are still some cognitive gaps between the public and the market, and there is insufficient understanding of what problems blockchain technology really solves.

I think it requires some objective criteria to judge whether a scenario needs to use blockchain. For example, whether multi-party collaboration is required, whether multi-party mutual trust is required, and whether there is an endorsement by a third-party authority. In addition, the alliance chain is also suitable for "restricted participation" scenarios. In the future, community members are required to preach together and explore a broader application space of the blockchain.

Sharing a personal experience, I think it is very suitable for the application of alliance chain. In 2020, my family suffered from a relatively serious illness. After the examination at the home city hospital, I went to the provincial hospital to see a doctor, and the doctor asked for another examination. This is because the data between the hospitals is not connected, and the results of each other's inspections are not recognized. This leads to repeated procedures for patients' examination and diagnosis in the hospital, such as long queues for appointments. So I think the alliance chain can do some experience improvement in the medical field and solve the problem of data trust and data silos.

4. What are the development directions of blockchain technology you are optimistic about?

I am more interested in the integration of blockchain and privacy computing, and the company is also trying to make a full encryption contract based on FISCO BCOS. For example, in the application of the alliance chain, if you are in the same chain as your competitors, and some private data is involved, then everyone will have concerns. Teacher Xiao Zhen also shared relevant cases before. When Peking University Research Institute uploaded data to a certain hospital, the hospital was willing to provide data at first, but later did not provide data for fear of being seen by peers.

The combination of blockchain and private computing can solve this problem very well. Blockchain + privacy computing can ensure that data is "available and invisible". Now some customers have put forward demands in this regard, such as state-owned enterprises, and the future application space should be very extensive.

In addition, I am also very optimistic about the application of blockchain in the field of DID. Personal information leakage is a problem that bothers me. After registering on some platforms, personal information is not in my own hands, but circulates in the market. The risk of information leakage increases, which will cause me to frequently receive harassing calls. If personal data is in the hands of oneself and used in an authorized way, personal privacy can be better protected. At present, the blockchain has produced some solutions in this field, such as the new distributed data transmission protocol - DDTP mode proposed by WeBank.

5. Becoming an architect is the goal of many developers. In this regard, can you share your growth experience? What are the hard skills and soft skills needed to be a good architect?

In my opinion, becoming an excellent architect requires a process of continuous accumulation and summarization, and you must develop the habit of self-driven learning and reading. In addition, pay attention to sharing. The best way to learn to master a technology is not to apply what you have learned, but to apply what you teach. Teaching others means that we need more dedication and deeper understanding, which is also the best practice of Feynman learning method.

From the perspective of the skills that a good architect needs to have, technical ability, design ability, communication ability and overall control ability are indispensable. For an individual, technical competence is very important and must have both technical depth and breadth. A good architect must be able to lead people to progress in technology and find solutions to problems. For the team, the ability to control the overall situation is also very important. It is necessary to adapt to the situation according to the business, resource allocation, construction period, and team capacity, and sometimes it may even violate the design principles. Architects can't stick to the rules, so that they can work better in the team collaboration process.

With the title of MVP, everyone recognizes my professionalism more

6. What changes have you brought to your life and work after joining the community? Are there any people and things that are impressive to share with us?

After joining the community, the most direct change that brought me was that the adoption of the FISCO BCOS bottom chain solved the platform’s demand for bottom chain expansion and received a salary increase. The integration of the new bottom chain is helpful for many application scenarios, case publicity and own technical improvement. So last year's performance was not bad, thanks to the community. On the other hand, by participating in a series of online seminars in the community, I have broadened my horizons and gained a deeper understanding and cognition of the integration of blockchain and industry.

The most impressive thing is that during the upgrade of our company's VoneBaaS platform to FISCO BCOS v2.9, the community technicians gave us a lot of help, and they gave us the feeling of being very warm, enthusiastic, and answering questions. For example, during the Dragon Boat Festival, our team worked overtime to catch up with the schedule. When we communicated with Wang Zhang, the core developer of FISCO BCOS, we just added WeChat for 2 minutes and called him directly. Although he was on vacation, he was very patient, enthusiastic and professional. And FISCO BCOS core developers Chen Yujie and Wang Yue also helped us a lot, and I am very grateful.

So I think that since the community has supported us so much, we also want to give back to the community, and hope to share with you the guide for upgrading the VoneBaaS platform to FISCO BCOS v2.9. Others can avoid the pit we stepped on.

Stepping on the pit article link: click to view

7. You preached and promoted FISCO BCOS in public. Can you elaborate on the original intention and perception of doing so, and have there been any interesting stories?

After obtaining the community MVP identity certification, it has attracted many individuals or enterprises in the circle of friends who are interested in blockchain and alliance chain. Some friends who want to do chain reform will send me WeChat privately, make a phone call to make an appointment, or invite me to drink milk tea. They wanted me to offer some advice, including how to change the chain, what the cost and time would be, and what to do to make the blockchain fit better with the business. With the title of MVP, everyone recognizes my professionalism more, and it will also bring some business opportunities for the company.

From my own point of view, if my modest efforts can help enterprises improve trust relationships, reduce trust costs, and increase productivity through blockchain technology, whether the project can be successful or not, I think it is very meaningful.

8. How do you understand the role of MVP, and do you have any further plans and plans for participating in open source construction in the future?

Personally, I am very honored to be recognized by the community, and I am very happy to learn, communicate and share experiences with each other in the community. Next, our VoneBaaS platform plans to adapt and upgrade FISCO BCOS go sdk and Weidentity digital identity in the second half of the year. After overcoming some technical difficulties, I hope to share and contribute my experience to the community.

For more dry goods, please pay attention to the FISCO BCOS open source community public account, visit the FISCO BCOS code repository to download all the source code of the project: https://github.com/FISCO-BCOS/FISCO-BCOS , please click the star collection in the upper right corner of the page , to get the latest version.