Pre-requisite / recommended knowledge for learning plasma

[pet3r-pan]

I was wondering if there could be a list of computer science topics that one should be well versed in before diving into plasma if not be able to contribute to research. (any metal models, paradigms that enable the right thought process if not familiarity).

[smartcontracts]

Good point. This should be somewhere in the introduction, I guess.

Most important concepts are:

• Hash functions
• Merkle trees
• Asymmetric crypto
• UTXO model (?)

[pet3r-pan]

Those are more conceptual primitives needed to understand plasma. Chapter 1 of cryptoeconomics.study https://github.com/cryptoeconomics-study/website/blob/master/book/chapter-01.md goes through them pretty thoroughly ;)

I was wondering if there was any way of understanding the current knowledge base of plasma from first principals eg. when the first concept for it began and how it developed, the way of thinking / engineering influences / practices that have shaped how it has come to be.

Would love for there to be some questions for which we can answer from first logical principals that allows us to logically get up to speed with where things are at. + Would also love references to how researchers are approaching research and how they are attempting to solve each research problem + even where they are at.

eg. Vlad has a series on the history of casper.

I know this is a lot but I am just really curious about plasma and want to learn about it properly without wasting my time :)

Cheers!

[pet3r-pan]

Went through the #2 plasma implementers call that was uploaded to youtube. Trying to follow the conversation and watch everyone try to get on the same page and it was surprisingly informative and reinforcing to what I knew before.

[pet3r-pan]

thoughts? @kfichter