Was Satoshi's coding ability considered bad?

[nc50lc]

Yes a Peer-to-peer decentralized digital currency was a great idea to be able to trade "everything" wordwide.
That's why "Satoshi's" "small project" became this big.
My guess is: Satoshi didn't expect this to be famous in just a short time, Bitcoin grew beyond his control that developing it with himself exposed was "too scary" for him.

-snip-

Whoa whoa, I take it as an insult to Einstein and the media, that's rude.
But really, "genius" is a state of mind and Einstein had lost it, stubbornly implied his theories even though he was not sure of it himself.
He even died without completing a "materialistic" reasoning to the theory of everything.

Speaking of frauds and Thieves, ask the one who "discovered" the DNA double Helix.There's only one man that I know who's a Stable Genius: Donald Trump, Einstein and Satoshi are idiotic sometimes.

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[ir.hn]

The sudden ALS (a one-in-a-million terminal health defect) of Hal Finney after being a vigorous runner is quite an anomaly. What’s the odds that the one public guy who was closest to Satoshi (a one-in-a-billion circumstance) and who might have had information which would blow this discussion wide open, was suddenly erased from life. I have no information about whether it’s possible to induce ALS in a person. I’ve seen some vague implications that the CIA had a way to induce cancer. I’m not drawing any conclusions from this at all. Not weighing it at all in my thought process. Just noting it.

And when you realize that ALS is caused by Lyme disease and Lyme has been weaponized by the CDC...Ya you realize the C*A was probably involved.

http://als-cure.com/als-lyme/als-patients-infected-with-lyme-bacteria-borrelia-spirochetes/

http://truthstreammedia.com/2017/09/09/officially-ignored-connection-lyme-disease-plum-island/

[Wind_FURY]

It's consensus opinion among programmers that Satoshi knew alot about cryptography, but was not an expert programmer. I seem to remember that Bitcoin 0.1.0 was just a bunch of functions and a main function, no classes (and that version was of course all Satoshi's work). It's not impossible that Satoshi was a good programmer, but deliberately chose to obscure any stylistic fingerprints by trying to appear to be amateurish. But there's no evidence for that, it's just a possibility.

Re: changes, IIRC the developing team are even today still untangling some of the messy dependencies introduced early on in the project, but who's responsible for those I don't know.

I read a quote somewhere that John Nash learned programming late in his life during the 1990's. He also had his own theory of what money should be called Ideal Money, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_money#What_is_Ideal_Money?

He is mathematician and a cryptographer. Which also showed what Satoshi mainly was.

Besides Hal Finny and Nick Szabo, my top two for "Satoshi", could John Nash be a possible candidate?

[monkeydominicorobin]

I've been reading some old posts of some prolific members here on the forum and here's a quote from DeathAndTaxes to seek your teeth into:

This.  The first time I learned about Bitcoin, I took a look at the whitepaper and code I found all kinds of "flaws".  It wasn't until hours (days?) of reading and researching that the elegance of the solution became visible (like a Polaroid appearing from the black).  It is humbling when you realize that you are looking at the product of someone far above your own capabilities and they have created what you previously considered impossible.  In a hundred years in a hundred parallel worlds I wouldn't have come up with the concept of Bitcoin, it was simply too alien.  It goes beyond just intelligence, the idea was simply outside my frame of reference.  The problem wasn't even one I considered that a solution existed.  

Now Satoshi's coding (nuts and bolts)?  Blech that is another story but nobody complains that Einstein's notes are hard to read because he had bad handwriting.

DeathAndTaxes is pretty famous around here for his ideas and intelligence. Even though he admits earlier in his statement that the idea of Bitcoin was completely out of his scope of intelligence he then goes on to slightly criticize Satoshi's coding ability.

I'm curious if this is the general view point of the community and also if it is true was there any major adaptions to the code following Gavin and other developers contributing to the project?

I'm trying to go through his other posts in an attempt to find any explanation of this as I've not found anything from some quick searches.

Criticizing a source code of another programmer is purely subjective. If Satoshi Nakamoto is truly inferior in terms of coding then he should not have made his source code open to the public. I cannot say the same to Microsoft Windows Operating System.

[Slavyanskiy]

When creating a new product, it is absolutely normal when it is not perfect.
Initially there were mistakes well, so what? They have already been corrected.

[AverageGlabella]

Criticizing a source code of another programmer is purely subjective. If Satoshi Nakamoto is truly inferior in terms of coding then he should not have made his source code open to the public. I cannot say the same to Microsoft Windows Operating System.

Some of it might be purely subjective and as long as it works it works but laying down a good foundation for others that read the code is considered good programming.

Open source actually brings in the possibility of improving the existing code by having input from others so its not a bad idea to make it open source. Plus he was limited by his own standards and unless he wanted to dedicate more time in learning effective code Bitcoin would of been delayed. Nothing can be made perfect and I was not calling out Satoshi for having bad coding practices I was merely interested after stumbling upon a quote from D&T.

[chrisvl]

Was perfect, not bad. Satoshi first was a human and then was a programmer, in coding bugs are unavoidable because programmers are humans, the only way to avoid bugs is one Not Code..

[hiphoptrail]

It was pretty good: I'd give it a grade of B+. The worst problem was that there were only a few, huge files, but if you ignored that then it made a lot of sense. It was written in (then-)modern C++, clearly with a lot of care. It was clearly not written in a stream-of-consciousness manner. There were very few bugs that you could blame on lack of programming skill.

My personal suspicion in this area is that Satoshi was never (or not recently) a full-time programmer, but he was pretty familiar with computer science (maybe a student or academic?), and he'd read some comprehensive C++ book just before starting on Bitcoin, so he made full and correct usage of C++ features in a slightly messy way.

Agree.

Another important fact to consider is that satoshi never meant to roll out the code in 2009. His/her/they chose correctly to take advantage of the 2007/2008 US led monetary crash which caused the highest level of distrust in government to enter at that date and move forward perfecting the code.

just my 2 satoshis

[Kakmakr]

I think Gavin said at one point that most of Satoshi's original code was replaced or tweaked and that very little of his original code is still in the protocol. I do not care if his code was sloppy or not, the basic concept worked and people all over the world started using it. All developers will criticize other people's work in hindsight, but looking back at that time, Satoshi delivered a working concept and a skeleton that needed some flesh. 

As some people said, this might just be a ploy to hide his real identity. 

[Traxo]

Every post from @anunymint apparently was deleted.

Some of this thread was archived here and here.

[AverageGlabella]

I think Gavin said at one point that most of Satoshi's original code was replaced or tweaked and that very little of his original code is still in the protocol. I do not care if his code was sloppy or not, the basic concept worked and people all over the world started using it. All developers will criticize other people's work in hindsight, but looking back at that time, Satoshi delivered a working concept and a skeleton that needed some flesh. 

As some people said, this might just be a ploy to hide his real identity. 

Yes my original point wasnt to rubbish Satoshi even in the slightest. What he came up with has changed the world for the better. But in a technical stand point of view I wanted to know whether his coding was considered "bad". Hes obviously got a very capable mind and seemed to just learn a little coding to bring out his project rather than dedicating his life to coding.

[Cøbra]

Only professional programmers would consider his code 'bad' or 'sloppy'. But professional programmers have a tendency to over-complicate everything behind twenty layers of abstraction and object-orientated garbage, so they see anything that doesn't do the same as bad code.

The bigger problem is that he used Windows, which is an unforgivable sin.

[aliashraf]

Only professional programmers would consider his code 'bad' or 'sloppy'. But professional programmers have a tendency to over-complicate everything behind twenty layers of abstraction and object-orientated garbage, so they see anything that doesn't do the same as bad code.

Object/garbage oriented programming is not considered a professional technique. Ironically the more obsessed a programmer is with OOP, less he knows about it.
It is primarily about encapsulation (a genius idea) rather than inheritance, the most naive modelling technique ever. Such programmers have the tendency you mentioned here and always fall into useless abstractions, it is done in the name of re-usability and they do it like a teenager who is excessively addicted to masterbation.

Thanks god, bitcoin code is not poisoned by such garbages and navigating through it you are not lost in abstract ridiculous classes. Very limited and smart use of inheritance and more emphasis on encapsulation. I think it is due to Satoshi's neat approach to the first implementation, his legacy.

[cellard]

Only professional programmers would consider his code 'bad' or 'sloppy'. But professional programmers have a tendency to over-complicate everything behind twenty layers of abstraction and object-orientated garbage, so they see anything that doesn't do the same as bad code.

The bigger problem is that he used Windows, which is an unforgivable sin.

I've always wondered why he used Windows instead of Linux, if he wanted to developed an open source currency. I guess that's what he was most used to, and that's all. Some people learn to do things one way and keep doing it the same way. He probably learned how to code in Windows and couldn't be arsed to switch to Linux.
At the end of the day we got open source code which is all that maters.

I wonder if someone here in the forums or somewhere else asked him why he was a Windows guy.

[seoincorporation]

I think all codes on the first versions are 'gruyère cheese' with all those holes and things to fix, i think is the same scenario like when linux comes to live. Linus Torvalds isn't a bad coder, but he know that with a community the project could grow really fast. And i think was the same with bitcoin, maybe satoshi wasn't the best coder but he code bitcoin, what more do you whant from him? and he know with a community this could grow fast and big.

Other theory is that satoshi changes his coding style to avoid getting chased by his style, just like when you want to do a fake letter and try to change your letter format. 

[eSurge]

Only professional programmers would consider his code 'bad' or 'sloppy'. But professional programmers have a tendency to over-complicate everything behind twenty layers of abstraction and object-orientated garbage, so they see anything that doesn't do the same as bad code.

Object/garbage oriented programming is not considered a professional technique. Ironically the more obsessed a programmer is with OOP, less he knows about it.
It is primarily about encapsulation (a genius idea) rather than inheritance, the most naive modelling technique ever. Such programmers have the tendency you mentioned here and always fall into useless abstractions, it is done in the name of re-usability and they do it like a teenager who is excessively addicted to masterbation.

Thanks god, bitcoin code is not poisoned by such garbages and navigating through it you are not lost in abstract ridiculous classes. Very limited and smart use of inheritance and more emphasis on encapsulation. I think it is due to Satoshi's neat approach to the first implementation, his legacy.

Guess it's also worth to mention loose coupling here, as an integral principle of encapsulation. Although, an initial bitcoin's source code release seems to look way tightly coupled from this standpoint.

As Satoshi is believed to be Mr. Szabo IRL, nothing here *in terms of coding style* seem to be contradicting.

[Initscri]

Only professional programmers would consider his code 'bad' or 'sloppy'. But professional programmers have a tendency to over-complicate everything behind twenty layers of abstraction and object-orientated garbage, so they see anything that doesn't do the same as bad code.

The bigger problem is that he used Windows, which is an unforgivable sin.

You make a good point. In most open source projects there are many layers, and code is often developed w/ specific guidelines/structures in mind, etc. It could be argued that the way Satoshi developed the first release of BTC gave somewhat of an easier learning curve for other developers to pickup the project & provide aid; putting that structure & those guidelines into place.

When software is 100% fully developed, it:
1. Takes longer to build, MVP is quicker.
2. Doesn't attract open source developers quite as quickly (if everything is completed, why would developers pick it up). It's these developers which spearhead the project going forward.

Whether this was intentional or not is TBD.

[RodeoX]

Sato's basic mathematical idea about distributing time-stamped data on a chain of blocks was the breakthrough. Not the code itself. None of the code was really new, just the novel way it was cobbled together. Dare I say it was a little script-kitty like.

[gmaxwell]

Dare I say it was a little script-kitty like.

This is nonsense.  A lot of people like to throw crap at other people's work because they think it makes them sound superior.

The original Bitcoin software was unusually high quality. It was clean, minimal, relatively modern for its time, and largely (but not completely) free of defects.

Anyone who says otherwise is either uncritically repeating rumours they heard elsewhere or is trying to make themselves look better.  Those who know better don't usually bother saying anything since his work stands on its own, but it makes me a bit sad to see since Satoshi isn't here to defend himself, and .. well XKCD386.

[itod]

The original Bitcoin software was unusually high quality. It was clean, minimal, relatively modern for its time, and largely (but not completely) free of defects.

Exactly. I always wonder if people who criticize his programming abilities ever stop to ponder the wast functionality that software had to have. Do they ask them selves: if they had Whitepaper in front of them, would they be able to produce Bitcoin 0.1.0 code, and how much time it would take them? I think majority of critics would not be able to do it if they life depends on it.

As far as I've read historic quotations he wrote that code in 1 1/2 years. It's decent speed even if you do only that in your life, if he had other activities like teaching or regular job it's amazing speed for a side project.

I believe he was active coder at least for some part of his life, probably using programming in his academic work, if he was an academic. People who never actively programmed have no chance of producing that 0.1.0 code.