They've published the second part:
Reconstructing Smart Contracts, Part II: Parallel Universes and Unlimited Scalability
The Reconstructing Smart Contracts series is the brainchild of the founders of Antshares, representing their insights gained while designing Antshares smart contracts. The series, comprised of three parts, analyzes the existing smart contract systems through three angles respectively: determinism and resource control, scalability and decoupling, and universality and ecosystem compatibility. The series proposes a new philosophy for designing smart contracts.
(...) https://themerkle.com/reconstructing-smart-contracts-part-ii-parallel-universes-and-unlimited-scalability/I wonder what they are building up to? Not sure if it's just theoretical talk or when they are done explaining the articles there will be a full blown launch of Antshares features?
If you read the articles, two points are interesting in my opinion:
1) That is not the typical marketing-talk for a project. It is mentioned that the authors are from Antshares, but they write about the topic more in general, they don't explicitly refer on ANS.
2) Of course it can be assumed that there is intention. They wouldn't publish long articles like that to educate Dev's of other projects.
With other words: Of course it is about Antshares. The main-questions are:
1) Is it correct what they line out?
2) If yes, can they do it?
If both yes: Bright times ahead.
My opinion right now about ANS is very twisted. I really don't like the silence and that they let us pretty much in the dark. It's also not smart because an informed community of a quality project is a supportive community. That is not only about the price but they easily could have promoters for free if they would be smarter regarding communications.
On the other hand: I've seen that before. Factom is one example. After buying into it, it took some time until they've released a GUI-wallet and then it took another year to release a better one and guess what: Most people liked none of them and even Factom ist not perfect on that side and regarding community-communication there also were times with too much silence (that has changed now because now there is a slack and Paul Snow and Brian Deery are very open to answer questions). Important is: They always were hard workers and right now it's one of a very few projects that is taken absolutely seriously even beyond Crypto (Gates-Foundation, DHS, contract-negotiations with big banks etc.)
I don't refer to Factom to talk people into buying FCT - it's just meant as example. I hope that the Antshare-guys are on a similar level. And maybe, like the guys behind Factom, they are simply so focused on getting the basic technology done, and of course, that takes some time, while not caring that much about us right now.
But again, if that should be right, I don't think it's smart to be weak on the communication front. In my opinion it would be worth to hire a guy who has a direct contact to the team and is informed and with some communicative skills, to keep us and the public in general informed. If done right members of the community would become to explainers and defend a project against accusations - in this thread for example.