bitmunchies engineering update: checkout improvements and Minimal accounts

[bearbones]

My bitcoind server has been experiencing some connectivity issues.  This is why bitmunchies has been slow, and json throws an error on the checkout page.  I have called Quest, and they're working on it.  I also wrote a modification to my cart which should prevent this in the future.  Unfortunately, it won't be of much use until Quest gets their shit together.  I will be releasing this with an update to the existing osc bitcoin module instead of publishing a separate module.  They beat me to it. 

I disabled all requirements aside from email and password on the signup page, and allow valid, generic replacements.  This took me a couple of hours, and resulted in an arrangement I call 'Minimal Accounts.'  A brief explanation can be found here: http://www.bitmunchies.com/minimalaccounts.php.

On a side note: Why are the existing oscommerce contributions to the guest checkout issue so damn complicated?  I tried both this and this.  After hours of debugging, neither worked.  There must be a reason why they didn't take the simpler approach.  If anyone sees a problem with the Minimal Accounts system, or experiences trouble, please let me know!

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[bearbones]

I also wrote a modification to my cart which should prevent this in the future.  Unfortunately, it won't be of much use until Quest gets their shit together.  I will be releasing this with an update to the existing osc bitcoin module instead of publishing a separate module.  They beat me to it. 

Further details on this, for the immediately curious:

created a table in the DB linking order ids to unique addresses
A cron job populates this table with addresses but does not assign orders
At checkout, instead of querying bitcoind for a new address, it pulls one out of the queue, and assigns its order number
call setaccount(), though if this fails, it is no biggie.  The address is already linked in oscommerce.

This avoids any lag caused by connectivity issues between bitcoind server and php server (or other bitcoind-related issues).

[TehZomB]

Sounds great! Love the service - keep up the good work.

[Gabriel Beal]

I also wrote a modification to my cart which should prevent this in the future.  Unfortunately, it won't be of much use until Quest gets their shit together.  I will be releasing this with an update to the existing osc bitcoin module instead of publishing a separate module.  They beat me to it. 

Further details on this, for the immediately curious:

created a table in the DB linking order ids to unique addresses
A cron job populates this table with addresses but does not assign orders
At checkout, instead of querying bitcoind for a new address, it pulls one out of the queue, and assigns its order number
call setaccount(), though if this fails, it is no biggie.  The address is already linked in oscommerce.

This avoids any lag caused by connectivity issues between bitcoind server and php server (or other bitcoind-related issues).

That's good stuff.  This is why I think we need a bitcoin-business organization to specifically share this kind of thing.  Maybe we could just start a sub-forum.