Amateur hour

[Blinken]

As a professional software developer this may be an opportune time to point out that the bitcoin code is an amateur production.

I have the greatest respect for Gavin and others that have donated untold hours to make bitcoin into a reality and I know from experience how tough self-funded development is.

Nevertheless, make no mistakes, the current incarnation of Bitcoin has a lot of ill-conceived design points and implementation weaknesses (as we have seen from the events of the last 24 hours).

Aside from the blunder that just resulted in a blockchain fork, there is a much larger, related issue looming on the horizon, which is the inability of the design to process large numbers of transactions. It is ludicrous we have people whining about "Satoshi Dice" creating numerous transactions. I could sit down and write a software component that could easily generate billions of transactions without breaking a sweat once it is deployed to a few thousand boxes, if I so chose, and yet you are concerned about Satoishi Dice generating a few million transactions. The problem of high-volume transaction handling needs to be answered at a new level which is, unfortunately, way above the paygrade of the current development team.

[gusti]

Please, not again ... 

[misterbigg]

...the current incarnation of Bitcoin has a lot of ill-conceived design points and implementation weaknesses ...there is a much larger, related issue looming on the horizon, which is the inability of the design to process large numbers of transactions.

Fortunately, Bitcoin is open source. Go ahead and fork the repository, apply your fixes (since you're a developer) and let me know once you've got that debugged and tested. Then, write a paper describing your revolutionary improvements allowing Bitcoin to scale while retaining its decentralized properties.

Until then, STFU.

[Piper67]

As a professional software developer this may be an opportune time to point out that the bitcoin code is an amateur production.

I have the greatest respect for Gavin and others that have donated untold hours to make bitcoin into a reality and I know from experience how tough self-funded development is.

Nevertheless, make no mistakes, the current incarnation of Bitcoin has a lot of ill-conceived design points and implementation weaknesses (as we have seen from the events of the last 24 hours).

Aside from the blunder that just resulted in a blockchain fork, there is a much larger, related issue looming on the horizon, which is the inability of the design to process large numbers of transactions. It is ludicrous we have people whining about "Satoshi Dice" creating numerous transactions. I could sit down and write a software component that could easily generate billions of transactions without breaking a sweat once it is deployed to a few thousand boxes, if I so chose, and yet you are concerned about Satoishi Dice generating a few million transactions. The problem of high-volume transaction handling needs to be answered at a new level which is, unfortunately, way above the paygrade of the current development team.

Really? A lot of ill-conceived design points and implementation weaknesses? Bitcoin has been around since 2009. There was one bug that caused a fork in 2010, and another one last night. Both got solved in a matter of hours. The blockchain size is an issue of agreement between the devs, not a technical one.

And all of this for a piece of software that is still in beta. Do you, a professional, have any idea how this compares with, oh, I don't know... Windows 95?

[Scrat Acorns]

I could sit down and write a software component that could easily generate billions of transactions without breaking a sweat once it is deployed to a few thousand boxes, if I so chose

Someone doesn't know how fees and transaction priorities work.

[DeathAndTaxes]

As a professional software developer this may be an opportune time to point out that the bitcoin code is an amateur production.

I have the greatest respect for Gavin and others that have donated untold hours to make bitcoin into a reality and I know from experience how tough self-funded development is.

Nevertheless, make no mistakes, the current incarnation of Bitcoin has a lot of ill-conceived design points and implementation weaknesses (as we have seen from the events of the last 24 hours).

Aside from the blunder that just resulted in a blockchain fork, there is a much larger, related issue looming on the horizon, which is the inability of the design to process large numbers of transactions. It is ludicrous we have people whining about "Satoshi Dice" creating numerous transactions. I could sit down and write a software component that could easily generate billions of transactions without breaking a sweat once it is deployed to a few thousand boxes, if I so chose, and yet you are concerned about Satoishi Dice generating a few million transactions. The problem of high-volume transaction handling needs to be answered at a new level which is, unfortunately, way above the paygrade of the current development team.

Then do it.  Take the codebase fork it and produce BlinkCoin.  Let the market decide which one is superior. STFU or do it.   Here is my challenge to you.  "You can't. You absolutely and completely lack that skills to accomplish what you claim".  Prove me wrong.

[mccorvic]

Phew, what we really needed was another entire thread on this.  I mean, honestly, who thought 20 threads already was really enough?

[acoindr]

Aside from the blunder that just resulted in a blockchain fork, there is a much larger, related issue looming on the horizon, which is the inability of the design to process large numbers of transactions.

That's not due to software design, but Bitcoin design. Broadcasting massive amounts of transaction data to home nodes, for authentication and relay, without T1 level bandwidth is not feasible. I've written a solution which addresses that issue.

[Blinken]

I could sit down and write a software component that could easily generate billions of transactions without breaking a sweat once it is deployed to a few thousand boxes, if I so chose

Someone doesn't know how fees and transaction priorities work.

If they worked, then we wouldn't have a problem with Satoishi Dice would we?

[drawingthesun]

As a professional software developer this may be an opportune time to point out that the bitcoin code is an amateur production.

If you care about Bitcoin, you should get on board and start making changes, if they do not allow your changes then create a fork.

Nevertheless, make no mistakes, the current incarnation of Bitcoin has a lot of ill-conceived design points and implementation weaknesses (as we have seen from the events of the last 24 hours).

This is the first major problem Bitcoin has had, a few others have been smaller. But the developers have worked wonders. We have an entire decentralized monetary system that has been working with increased use for almost 3 years without a stop.

Aside from the blunder that just resulted in a blockchain fork, there is a much larger, related issue looming on the horizon, which is the inability of the design to process large numbers of transactions. It is ludicrous we have people whining about "Satoshi Dice" creating numerous transactions. I could sit down and write a software component that could easily generate billions of transactions without breaking a sweat once it is deployed to a few thousand boxes, if I so chose, and yet you are concerned about Satoishi Dice generating a few million transactions.

Whilst I agree the views against S.Dice are short sighted, the problem isn't the volume of transactions but the returns of 1 satoshi that is being considered spam. I personaly think that the developers need a solution that makes what S.Dice is doing a non-issue, but its causing issueis because of lots of 1 satoshi tx which is spamming the chain. Its a problem that needs a lot of work.

The problem of high-volume transaction handling needs to be answered at a new level which is, unfortunately, way above the paygrade of the current development team.

This is rude and I can't answer if its true or not, but based on the vibe I get from you I bet you have no idea what your talking about. Many of us here are actually professional programmers/engineers and the Bitcoin project is hard! Its way out there and new, not your average web app or business application. This is new territory and of course there will be problems.

[Blinken]

As a professional software developer this may be an opportune time to point out that the bitcoin code is an amateur production.

I have the greatest respect for Gavin and others that have donated untold hours to make bitcoin into a reality and I know from experience how tough self-funded development is.

Nevertheless, make no mistakes, the current incarnation of Bitcoin has a lot of ill-conceived design points and implementation weaknesses (as we have seen from the events of the last 24 hours).

Aside from the blunder that just resulted in a blockchain fork, there is a much larger, related issue looming on the horizon, which is the inability of the design to process large numbers of transactions. It is ludicrous we have people whining about "Satoshi Dice" creating numerous transactions. I could sit down and write a software component that could easily generate billions of transactions without breaking a sweat once it is deployed to a few thousand boxes, if I so chose, and yet you are concerned about Satoishi Dice generating a few million transactions. The problem of high-volume transaction handling needs to be answered at a new level which is, unfortunately, way above the paygrade of the current development team.

Then do it.  Take the codebase fork it and produce BlinkCoin.  Let the market decide which one is superior. STFU or do it.   Here is my challenge to you.  "You can't. You absolutely and completely lack that skills to accomplish what you claim".  Prove me wrong.

Right now, I not planning on re-arranging my life to take an unpaid position as a bitcoin developer. I am just saying that it is inevitable that the design and development move to a new level, so we, as a community, need to adopt the mindset that evolution must occur and figure out how to do that.

[justusranvier]

Right now, I not planning on re-arranging my life to take an unpaid position as a bitcoin developer.

You don't need to be unpaid. If your abilities are as good as you claim you should be able to find plenty of people willing to donate.

For example, just look at how quickly the OSX packaging for Armory bounty was raised.

[Severian]

As a professional software developer this may be an opportune time to point out that the bitcoin code is an amateur production.

No, Bitcoin is a spontaneous production by a pro:

I actually did this kind of backwards.  I had to  write all the code before I could convince myself that I could solve every problem, then I wrote the paper.  I think I will be able to release the code sooner than I could write a detailed spec.

Satoshi Nakamoto, Nov 2008

He was solving a problem with an experiment. This is the experiment. Either create your own experiment that results in a half a billion dollar market (that could disappear tomorrow) or quit whining about the experiment in progress.

Thanks.

[drawingthesun]

Right now, I not planning on re-arranging my life to take an unpaid position as a bitcoin developer. I am just saying that it is inevitable that the design and development move to a new level, so we, as a community, need to adopt the mindset that evolution must occur and figure out how to do that.

If you buy Bitcoin and want the value of the Bitcoin to increase, giving up your time to fix issues you can clearly see will pay off will it not?

If you can help Bitcoin accommodate the issues you have identified and because of that Bitcoin will have more chance of becoming a global currency. Your actions will cause those Bitcoins you buy will be worth thousands and the time you invested to help that happen will pay off far more than taking a salary. Perhaps?

[Piper67]

Those who can, do.

Those who can't, bitch. 

[Littleshop]

I could sit down and write a software component that could easily generate billions of transactions without breaking a sweat once it is deployed to a few thousand boxes, if I so chose, and yet you are concerned about Satoishi Dice generating a few million transactions. The problem of high-volume transaction handling needs to be answered at a new level which is, unfortunately, way above the paygrade of the current development team.

It is hard to understand what you are even saying here.  Are you saying you are so good at software development that you could write a better client for handling high volume transactions or are you saying you could easily flood the network with transactions?  

Hint: Both is not an answer because you would be wrong on both points.  

[Gareth Nelson]

If you don't have time to write the fix yourself, what about outlining how to fix it so that someone else can do the heavy lifting of coding it?

Not an attack or anything - just seems like if you truly have a way to fix the issues and the only issue is lack of time then describing your method would appear to be the least you can do.

[wtfvanity]

As a professional software developer this may be an opportune time to point out that the bitcoin code is an amateur production.

I have the greatest respect for Gavin and others that have donated untold hours to make bitcoin into a reality and I know from experience how tough self-funded development is.

Nevertheless, make no mistakes, the current incarnation of Bitcoin has a lot of ill-conceived design points and implementation weaknesses (as we have seen from the events of the last 24 hours).

Aside from the blunder that just resulted in a blockchain fork, there is a much larger, related issue looming on the horizon, which is the inability of the design to process large numbers of transactions. It is ludicrous we have people whining about "Satoshi Dice" creating numerous transactions. I could sit down and write a software component that could easily generate billions of transactions without breaking a sweat once it is deployed to a few thousand boxes, if I so chose, and yet you are concerned about Satoishi Dice generating a few million transactions. The problem of high-volume transaction handling needs to be answered at a new level which is, unfortunately, way above the paygrade of the current development team.

Nu uh. My penis is bigger than yours.

[drawingthesun]

I could sit down and write a software component that could easily generate billions of transactions without breaking a sweat once it is deployed to a few thousand boxes

Also this will cost you a lot in Bitcoins, feel free to feed the miners. This might cost you a hundred Bitcoins an hour though.

[Blinken]

Right now, I not planning on re-arranging my life to take an unpaid position as a bitcoin developer.

You don't need to be unpaid. If your abilities are as good as you claim you should be able to find plenty of people willing to donate.

For example, just look at how quickly the OSX packaging for Armory bounty was raised.

That's a nice thought, but I checked out the donations to the Armory address and it came to about 200 bitcoins. That would last me about 2 weeks.