In re Bitcoin Devs are idiots

[alexkravets]

Another way to state the real problem: There is no Bitcoin Protocol Spec, most semantics buried in the hairball of the C++ reference implementation

This was actually a good example of something a spec wouldn't help (though would still be good to have). The inconsistent behavior here arose out of 0.8 not faithfully implementing some implicit behavior in BDB. The behavior in question is not anywhere in the Bitcoin code itself, nor is it visible at the interface of BDB and Bitcoin.  If there were a spec it would make no mention of it— and yet the network would be broken all the same.

The key thing is that in a distributed consensus system the most important definition of right is "consistent", this is paramount to all other concerns. A spec is helpful to the extent that it makes it easier to achieve a bit identical consistent behavior in the validation of blocks across all nodes, but because the spec itself can't be executed a spec can never guarantee consistency, at least not in the real world. (well, unless the spec is code— which is effectively what we have, for worse or better)

I respectfully disagree.  

A real protocol specification would enable a whole ecosystem of alternative and interoperable implementations to appear in Scala, Java, Go, C, etc.  

These implementations would NOT use the same flawed 3rd party libraries and there would be a real diversity in Bitcoin land, instead of the monoculture of C++ with all of its "magic" and "folklore".

Once no individual implementation had large enough fraction of the hash rate, then such forks would NOT occur, instead, bugs in a given implementation would only affect some miners, merchants & users but the chain would be just fine.

Let us hope and pray that eventually there will be some effort ( funded perhaps by the Bitcoin Foundation ) to extract and publish such a spec from the C++ hairball formal enough for viable alternative implementations to appear and to interoperate.
Cheers ...

A agree with you, but based on statements by Jeff, Gavin, and Mike, this will not happen.  If we want a well specified crypto currency with a wealth of implementations, we are going to have to create it.  Bitcoin is not that, and it is not going to become that.

If core developers are firm in this, i.e. their refusal to even entertain having a spec extracted from C++ warts and all, then we'll just have to live with sadness for a while ... until somebody like Ripple comes along and "does it right" ... we'll see how this goes ...

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[MPOE-PR]

AND, as all critics ignore because they are clueless and it invalidates their criticism, the bug isn't in bitcoin at all!  It is in some versions of BDB on some platforms.

You are wrong. Devs'/devzombs' first reaction was that "BDB bug" because a. they are idiots and b. they think their shit doesn't stink.

Fact of the matter is, they just failed to configure the BDB. Because a.

Nice trying to hide behind the Jesus of your faith, but it won't wash.

And to add to #114 above, seems OKpay got swindled for 10k or so too.

How much money do you expect people to contribute to the "propping dev arrogance" fund? The unencrypted wallet cost millions. This thing costs however much. How much more is needed? How long are we going to hear "it's not our fault" and "Satoshi did it"?

[smtp]

Right now there's no question that they deserve to be called idiots. What's happening now was easily preventable and shouldn't have ever happened under any circumstances.

It's actually fucking amazing that this is first MAJOR bug in 4 years.

AND, as all critics ignore because they are clueless and it invalidates their criticism, the bug isn't in bitcoin at all!  It is in some versions of BDB on some platforms.  The developers wisely chose a better database for 0.8, but unfortunately the bug manifested itself in a bad way (it could have been worse, e.g. if the bug in BDB made remote code execution or altering old blocks possible) before almost all nodes had upgraded.

I've seen at least one thread claiming that it's not a bug in BDB as much as a misconfiguration.

It is a question of wording - if we assume everybody knows all facts: you may call it a bug in bitcoin, that the BDB was used misconfigured.

Anyway, no need to insult people here from the very beginning of the thread - but this seems also a characteristic of this bitcoin forum(s) that this is tolerated. :-(

smtp

[cho]

[...]It'd seem consensus is emerging that indeed the devs are idiots (should you wish to more politely define that as "strategically myopic" or whatever other phrase). It'd seem the consensus also is emerging that indeed the way forward is,

As far I've read (which includes this whole thread of course), consensus is emerging that the devs are doing a good to very good job overall. You are the only one calling them idiots in this thread, which is wrong, insensitive, and counter-productive. Most of your comments let me think you have no idea what quality management is in software engineering, and what "0 defect" means in this field. You might wonder why Amazon cloud can be unreachable during a whole, why Gmail can lose mails and be unable to restore them from backups, and why NASA shuttles crash.
I would advise you to stop calling people names because they are not delivering that free unicorn to you.

[MPOE-PR]

I hope the gods on mount Bitcoin Foundation are listening once in a while, but Bitcoin's monoculture of a single "magical" C++ implementation whose code serves as the spec cannot go on forever.

I would say you grossly overestimate the importance of some irrelevant foundation thingee. It's a case of Rome, Alabama talking itself into the "center of Christian faith".

[...]It'd seem consensus is emerging that indeed the devs are idiots (should you wish to more politely define that as "strategically myopic" or whatever other phrase). It'd seem the consensus also is emerging that indeed the way forward is,

As far I've read (which includes this whole thread of course), consensus is emerging that the devs are doing a good to very good job overall. You are the only one calling them idiots in this thread, which is wrong, insensitive, and counter-productive. Most of your comments let me think you have no idea what quality management is in software engineering, and what "0 defect" means in this field. You might wonder why Amazon cloud can be unreachable during a whole, why Gmail can lose mails and be unable to restore them from backups, and why NASA shuttles crash.
I would advise you to stop calling people names because they are not delivering that free unicorn to you.

Then you need to learn to read.

And re "heroics": there were no heroics involved here. The in extremis forcing of a downgrade is not heroic. People doing it are not cool.

It is idiocy, and the people doing it were idiots. Yes, they had no choice. Guess why they had no choice, and guess who puts themselves in the situation of having no choice.

Let me make this perfectly clear: the current hard fork is the death of Bitcoin unless the consensus reached here (ie, no more bitcoin client releases until spec, first release code-cleaning release) is implemented exactly.

This is not up for discussion, it is a fact.

[mobodick]

MPOE-PR, what are you doing here? Why are you really here?

Has MPEx considered hiring "good" programmers to work on the bitcoin code?

Considered, yes. One problem is the centralization issue stemming from that approach. The one correct way to handle Bitcoin development is exactly as designed: independent devs doing it. The problem is that instead of doing it they spend their time opining on things that utterly ain't their business.

And did you ever pay these independant devs for fixing shit for you for free?
Are they your wage slaves so you can demand that they do work for you or anyone else?
Have you ever discussed your issues with the development team in a calm and adult manner?
Do you even have the capacity to understand what you ask of them? (your tone tells me you're oblivious)
How much further does your understanding of the problem go besides: "It's fucked up! fixitfixitfixitfixit!!@@!@!!!!" ?

And how would you consider devs being independend if you expect them to give in to your tantrums?
Reality is you need the devs and you have absolutely nothing to say about what they do or how they do it. That is why you come crying here on the forum to get souls for your case. Boehoe. You are turning a technical thing into a political thing. Which is quite ironic because it is exactly what you accuse the developers of. I wonder why you so readily wield tools that you want to deny others.

In any case, if you don't like bitcoin go make your own. Bitcoin does not need you. But you propably won't because you are enjoying the benefits that are made possible by the bitcoin development team and the community that emerged around the system?

As usual a lot of dumb arrogant shit packaged in expensive words.
 

[cho]

[...]It'd seem consensus is emerging that indeed the devs are idiots (should you wish to more politely define that as "strategically myopic" or whatever other phrase). It'd seem the consensus also is emerging that indeed the way forward is,

As far I've read (which includes this whole thread of course), consensus is emerging that the devs are doing a good to very good job overall. You are the only one calling them idiots in this thread, which is wrong, insensitive, and counter-productive. Most of your comments let me think you have no idea what quality management is in software engineering, and what "0 defect" means in this field. You might wonder why Amazon cloud can be unreachable during a whole, why Gmail can lose mails and be unable to restore them from backups, and why NASA shuttles crash.
I would advise you to stop calling people names because they are not delivering that free unicorn to you.

Then you need to learn to read.

And re "heroics": there were no heroics involved here. The in extremis forcing of a downgrade is not heroic. People doing it are not cool.

It is idiocy, and the people doing it were idiots. Yes, they had no choice. Guess why they had no choice, and guess who puts themselves in the situation of having no choice.

Let me make this perfectly clear: the current hard fork is the death of Bitcoin unless the consensus reached here (ie, no more bitcoin client releases until spec, first release code-cleaning release) is implemented exactly.

This is not up for discussion, it is a fact.

Or you need to learn to read. I'm not sure that sentence brings us anywhere.
Same thing with "This is not up for discussion, it is a fact". This sentence only serves to prove your lack of open-mindedness.

Why are you speaking about the word "heroics" ? Did I mention it ?
I still disagree with you about the devs being idiots, this mistake was human, and mistakes DO happen, whatever the amount of ressources and good will you throw at development.

[alexkravets]

I've suggested this before but maybe it's worth mentioning again.

Split bitcoind and bitcoin-Qt into completely independent components. Bitcoind stores a local copy of the blockchain, connects to the p2p network, relays blocks and transactions, and serves blockchain information to clients only. Bitcoin-Qt is a client application only that connects to a trusted bitcoind node. The default installation would install them in a pair, with bitcoind running all the time as a unix daemon (Windows service) and Bitcoin-Qt started on demand. Only one instance of bitcoind is needed on a typical home LAN, all the clients can just connect to it.

Once this is done Bitcoin-Qt can just focus on being the best client it can be, while bitcoind can focus on the blockchain and p2p network. It should also be extended to serve MultiBit, Armory and Electrum. Once the reference implementation is fully refactored into a client/server application it should make any attempt to develop an alternate implementation easier.

I don't have enough programming skill to do this, but I'd donate to anyone who does.

This would definitely be the first step out of the current insanity and finally bring some layering into the code base client UI === depends on ==> bitcoind but zero backward pointing dependencies.

This would be the first step on the long journey to the promised land of the BPS (Bitcoin Protocol Specification)

[ikbrunel]

I endorse writing a specification over new client releases.

[Timo Y]

MPOE-PR:

Irrespective of them being idiots or not, the bitcoin devs owe nothing to you.

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. If you feel strongly that something needs to be done urgently, then start a Kickstarter campaign to hire a team of "real" developers to clean up the code and write a specification.

[RodeoX]

This is like saying Garry Kasparov is a shitty chess player. Then saying "By the way, I don't know how to play chess."

[MPOE-PR]

Let me take the opportunity to clarify some points of apparent confusion:

And did you ever pay these independant devs for fixing shit for you for free?

This question is malformed. If you are asking me whether they owe me, the answer is yes.

Are they your wage slaves so you can demand that they do work for you or anyone else?

Yes, they are. This is what being a developer means in this context: that you are a servant. A slave, if you prefer that terminology. One who obeys. An inferior. A steward. Nobody, politically speaking. I'm running out of alternative ways to put this, but I would hope you get the idea.

If someone is interested in becoming politically relevant, being part of the dev team is not only a waste of his time, it's a waste of everyone's time. That a number of the more socially inept kids are doing this (Amir Scarface Taaki, who has meanwhile thankfully been ejected, Weirdo Luke, Gregory Pointless Maxwell and on and on) doesn't make it workable. It just doesn't work.

If someone is interested in becoming rich, being part of the dev team is not only a waste of his time, but a waste of everyone's time. It's just not how it works. Being part of the dev team is being part of the slaves, the servants, the stewards, the however you'd call them. This abject social position does not entitle them to immunity for their fuck-ups in any case. You may dislike that, and that's fine, but your likes and dislikes have no power to change this world.

Have you ever discussed your issues with the development team in a calm and adult manner?

You are not entitled to place limitations on the manner of my discourse. The correct question to ask here is, MP recently published an article about the problems in Bitcoin. Have the developers read it and noted this fact?

Do you even have the capacity to understand what you ask of them? (your tone tells me you're oblivious
How much further does your understanding of the problem go besides: "It's fucked up! fixitfixitfixitfixit!!@@!@!!!!" ?)
And how would you consider devs being independend if you expect them to give in to your tantrums?

I would guess you probably haven't actually understood what's being discussed here at all. As a rule of thumb that may serve you well in the future: whenever things happen that don't make sense to you, it's likely because you've not understood what's actually happening. It's rarely because the people involved are wrong. This is because you are stupid.

As to the matter of "testing":

sipa   jgarzik: have we seen a block which affected 5000 transaction index entries?
jgarzik   sipa: I don't think so

Fuck you.

This is not testing. Stop releasing new clients, you don't have the license to do it, idiots.

[mobodick]

It is idiocy, and the people doing it were idiots.

But who is the bigger idiot?
The idiot making the flawed software or the idiot trusting the software?
LOL.

[MPOE-PR]

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

You are too stupid to be here. Please leave.

This is like saying Garry Kasparov is a shitty chess player. Then saying "By the way, I don't know how to play chess."

See above.

But who is the bigger idiot?
The idiot making the flawed software or the idiot trusting the software?
LOL.

Try and stay on topic. Trying to find "bigger idiots" doesn't help anything, which is why politicians do it all the time.

[VeeMiner]

Another way to state the real problem: There is no Bitcoin Protocol Spec, most semantics buried in the hairball of the C++ reference implementation

Yes.  This will be the death of Bitcoin.  When a fully specified crypto currency comes along, it will leave Bitcoin behind.  "The implementation is the protocol specification" is wrong, and at Internet scale it is very wrong.

this is fixable though

[alexkravets]

There should be no need for a Kickstarter campaign at this point, one of the reasons for Bitcoin Foundation's existence is to "standardize bitcoin". I don't know how many coins they already collected from their Enterprise / Corporate members, but I hope that not all of them are spent on Gavin's salary and publicity tours.  Some should go towards funding the serious effort of extracting and publishing

BPS (Bitcoin Protocol Specification) version 1.0 and then targeting version 1.0 against the spec rather than declaring it to *be* the spec.

BPS 1.0 will be the Cambrian Explosion event of alternative implementations with the gene pool finally diversified across languages and dev teams.

P.S. Anecdotally, I personally know an extremely competent C++ programmer (who posts frequently in the forum) who is basically "already rich enough to retire" and who holds huge amount of bitcoins and who really really wanted to contribute to http://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin but had to give up after seeing all the magic of that magic kingdom with all the magical creatures who live there, i.e.

It would take about a week to do a proper local setup including testnet before you can even beging to be confident in any of your own lines NOT to feel ashamed submitting it as a pull request.  Sadly, he gave up.

Yet, the real point is this once we have BPS, only then we can "let 1000 flowers bloom" until then it's all a circle-jerk, sorry.


Cheers ...

[avoid3d]

I guess that's your cue to leave. Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

+1

[alexkravets]

Another way to state the real problem: There is no Bitcoin Protocol Spec, most semantics buried in the hairball of the C++ reference implementation

Yes.  This will be the death of Bitcoin.  When a fully specified crypto currency comes along, it will leave Bitcoin behind.  "The implementation is the protocol specification" is wrong, and at Internet scale it is very wrong.

this is fixable though

It IS fixable.  Let's see if this the latest episode provides enough motivation for devs and Bitcoin Foundation to start even talking about BPS 1.0, so far there's been clear lack of any will for a spec, instead all the usual ("we are all just victims of the original C++ hairball dropped on us by Satoshi", or "there is too many bugs we cannot ever fix b/c some ancient client might depend on them" are brought out and reheated over and over again)

[MPOE-PR]

this is fixable though

It is only fixable if fixed.

[cho]

Yes, they are. This is what being a developer means in this context: that you are a servant. A slave, if you prefer that terminology. One who obeys. An inferior. A steward. Nobody, politically speaking. I'm running out of alternative ways to put this, but I would hope you get the idea.

If someone is interested in becoming politically relevant, being part of the dev team is not only a waste of his time, it's a waste of everyone's time. That a number of the more socially inept kids are doing this (Amir Scarface Taaki, who has meanwhile thankfully been ejected, Weirdo Luke, Gregory Pointless Maxwell and on and on) doesn't make it workable. It just doesn't work.

If someone is interested in becoming rich, being part of the dev team is not only a waste of his time, but a waste of everyone's time. It's just not how it works. Being part of the dev team is being part of the slaves, the servants, the stewards, the however you'd call them. This abject social position does not entitle them to immunity for their fuck-ups in any case. You may dislike that, and that's fine, but your likes and dislikes have no power to change this world.

I'm amazed at your ability to spit on the very people that did the job and brought you a piece of software you are relying on daily.
In essence, your reasoning seems to be the following :
- Dev job does not make you rich
- Thus, devs are lower-class humans, slaves
- You are in the political class
- Thus, you are a higher-class human
- From this you deduce that devs are entitled to free work for you, and if that free work is not perfect, you are entitled to call them names.

Until this last post of yours I hadn't understood you have the brain level of a 5 year old child. No no no sorry, I know a lot of 5 year old children with higher moral grounds. More accurately, you are at the level of a 12 to 18 months baby, a period of life at which you still think other people should definitely satisify all your needs just because they are "the outside" of your persona.