In thinking about the UI we have made some interesting observations.

Firstly the "code" for an AT cannot be changed (otherwise you could never trust it and basically the main point of ATs is that can act as entities that require no trust beyond understanding their code) but it is possible that the UI could be improved (without changing any of the machine code of that AT).

How this is best handled is still something that requires some consideration but it does make sense that the UI might be able to be upgraded despite the fact that the AT machine code cannot be.

It will not be coded into the AT but attached to it (like a message can be attached to a tx) so it will be possible to "update" the UI (without any AT machine code being changed).

We haven't thought through the update process yet (it should probably require user confirmation at least) but it will be smoother than the current manual .html installation approach.

We will probably create some variations of the basic CF AT to choose from that should satisfy this.


I predicted that UI would very soon become a huge burden for AT which is why we are currently designing a way for the UI to actually be built into the AT itself (as metadata) to avoid the manual installation of UI (which will just become more and more of a mess if done the way it is currently).

It comes down to whether you want to minimise the fees as much as possible (which is why it works as it does now).

Currently it uses a clever "trick" to work super-efficiently by avoiding executing the machine code until the target block is reached (so although the % gets larger and larger no actual code is being executed while that is happening so it is tracking that progress "for free").

If we did change the behaviour (which of course could be done) then understand that it would cost everyone pledging or donating that little bit more (and waste more clock cycles for each node to verify the AT). This is due to a "min-fee" that is needed to cover any steps that are executed at each new block height.

I'm not sure if the button changes from Pledge to Donate automatically at 100% but if not that of course should be changed (luckily as that has nothing to do with the actual machine code that can be changed by updating the UI for that AT).

One of the next big steps is the idea of extending consensus to handle much more sophisticated "smart contracts" (which technologies such as Ethereum and AT are addressing by providing "Turing complete transactions") as although Bitcoin has quite a few neat features (such as M of N sig txs) its Script language was purposely designed not to support that.

(others note we have "moved on" from discussing about "ad sigs" so please don't bother bringing that up again or the post will also be deleted)

Indeed (welcome to bring something more interesting to this quiet corner for discussion).

Thanks - others wondering about where to get the relevant GPG keys from might find this link useful: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/wiki/pgp_keys

After downloading 0.10.0 and SHA256SUMS.asc it appears that I don't have the GPG public key of the signer (although I do GPG keys for Gavin, Jeff and Pieter) am I missing an updated GPG public key?

Apart from +1 posts I see plenty of posts that say (in very poor English) "I don't understand this topic as it is way too technical" (always from ad-sig posters).

I think it would be hard to find many that think such posts are "constructive" in any way at all.

And I know for a fact that Danny (who tries very hard to help out newbies) is constantly fighting against people offering "bad advice" (based upon "completely factually incorrect" statements and assumptions just because they are trying to earn BTC from their ad-sig).

It is not "up to me" to decide the quality of posts (that should be up to the majority who have an interest in the particular area to decide).

But I think that the majority of us would probably agree that a +1 post is of zero interest.

I incorrectly deleted a post which I just assumed was from an ad-sig due to having a "colourful sig". I admit that was my mistake but this is unfortunately the kind of problem that this whole ad-sig thing has led to (and I do not have "saint-like" patience like Danny) as we just become conditioned to ignoring posts with colorful sigs in the assumption that it is not even worth reading.

Then let them do that in a "newbie" area (I wish they would bring that back) and ban it elsewhere.

To be more clear IMO areas to do with Technical Development and Project Development (the more serious areas of this forum) should really be "off-bounds" for rubbish posts (in areas such as Speculation which I don't go near anyway I couldn't really care less).

Unfortunately as others are agreeing to here - the *vast majority* of ad-sig posts are just rubbish (so just because 1 out of 100 could be useful doesn't make it something we should just put up with).

Hehe - my guess is that it probably uses a NOT IN clause which will start to cause problems if many users have ignore lists in the thousands.

And that is the issue - if you want a "nice experience" on this forum now you have to either spend most of your time clicking Ignore for every ad-sig poster (which could eventually cause performance issues depending upon how that is actually implemented) or create a self-moderated topic like this one and monitor every post like a hawk (I have already deleted around 6 and that's in a topic that specifically says "no ad-sig posters allowed").

This has been brought up many, many times. It is not the sigs themselves but the pointless posts that is the issue (there is no option to "hide all posts by ad-sig posters" which would be something I'd gladly use if it were available).

You'd probably best to ask Vasilis or one of the Burst team about any issues you are having with AT.

Whether one idea is "better" than another is a very subjective thing (and not something I am going to wade into).

The Ethereum project has a lot of funding and some very talented people working on it (more than the AT project as we have very little funds and therefore pretty much only volunteers).

I help them with AT (but I am not paid by them or anyone else).

For things of "high value" (such as say property titles) then IMO the Bitcoin confirmation time is of no issue (so those things a very suitable to work as "coloured coins" backed by the power of the Bitcoin blockchain).

For things of much "lower value" I think less powerful blockchains (that have faster confirmation times) might be more suitable (and that doesn't mean I am championing any particular "alt").

It is funny that when even asked to simply not post in one single topic - they just can't (maybe they fear I might actually have some effect and reduce their pointless post income).

This is the kind of problem that the posting on this forum has come to (no topic can escape being spammed with ad-sig posts even if explicitly stated that that is not acceptable).