Btcd: Not your mom's Bitcoin daemon

https://blog.conformal.com/btcd-not-your-moms-bitcoin-daemon/

by conformal • 13 years ago

111 55 13 years ago

blog.conformal.com

nwh4• 13 years ago

Alternate implementations make me uncomfortable. The original client is not documented much at all, and there's very little room for error.

I salute the amount of effort that's gone into this though.

haakon• 13 years ago

I had the same reaction, but it's pretty cool that the "official" bitcoind regression test suite works on this implementation.

ErsatzVerkehr2• 13 years ago

Being uncomfortable about alternate implementations makes me uncomfortable.

nwh4• 13 years ago

It's a system completely designed around gaining a consensus. Any slightly differentiation in behaviour means a fork in the chain with catastrophic network-wide consequences. Both the original creator and the current developers are typically against re-implementations, with good reason.

VMG3• 13 years ago

I have the opposite reaction for the same reason. This helps formalizing the behavior of the original client and is an excellent thing for the network in the long run.

petercooper2• 13 years ago

Not my dad's either.

smoyer• 13 years ago

Neither of my parents have a bitcoin wallet.

clamprecht• 13 years ago

Sounds like a great thing to do over thanksgiving! (or some other upcoming holiday, if you're not in the states)

gaunab• 13 years ago

Yeah, as if there weren't any nerd moms. Stop the headline sexism already.

neals• 13 years ago

While your mom is not using this wallet, you cannot complain about sexism in this title.

DanBC2• 13 years ago

The stupid choice of strapline means this product will always have this kind of comment whenever it's discussed. Rightly so, IMO. It's the 21st century and someone would have to be a fucking idiot to not realise that this strapline is going to cause comment.

maxerickson• 13 years ago

No, the intended meaning is clearly not the pedantic one you are claiming should be used.

sp332• 13 years ago

Isn't it just ageist? After all, it implies that your mom already has a bitcoin daemon but your new one is better.

waterlesscloud• 13 years ago

Indeed. It pretty clearly implies your mom does have a bitcoin daemon, thus making her a nerdy mom.

Having said that, the article would get more upvotes here if the headline mentioned it was written in Go. ;-)

mkmkmmmmm• 13 years ago

no it obviously implies your mom is using an outdated bitcoind because she is a woman and knows nothing about computers; your father isn't clueless about tech. Sexist!

Dewie• 13 years ago

Some similar expression is "not your dad's rock music", implying that your dad listens to rock music. In this case, the headline implies that your mom uses some kind of Bitcoin daemon, ergo she is a nerdy mom.

vectorpush2• 13 years ago

Check out this thread from two years ago where people argue that the opposite phrase is sexist. I guess they figure "not your daddy's VCS" is sexist because it excludes women from the set of individuals who might have a need for a VCS.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3931048

In summary, any allusion to gender with regard to tech is inevitably interpreted as sexist by someone.

huxley2• 13 years ago

The phrases have different connotations, so they aren't actually true opposites.

Take a different example, say you described Git as:

* a man's version control system

or let's say you described it as:

* a woman's version control system

The male/female "binary" doesn't make them opposite and using one doesn't cancel out the sexism in the other, they just are sexist in different ways.

mkr-hn2• 13 years ago

What aspect of the headline is sexist?

bengotow• 13 years ago

I haven't been following Bitcoin very closely. This looks great, but I'm confused why the authors went to so much trouble to duplicate the existing daemon down to every last bug. It sounds like their architecture improves on the design of the original implementation quite a bit, which is awesome. But if they don't want to cause a fork in the Bitcoin community (by adding features, fixing bugs, etc.), what's the point of having a well written one over the poorly written one? Isn't the thing more or less a "locked" piece of software?

* I don't participate in the Bitcoin community, so I'm sorry in advance if this is an ignorant question! Congratulations to the authors - I think this is a pretty significant accomplishment regardless.

glomph• 13 years ago

Forks are a pretty big deal especially if they require action on behalf of all the people mining.

wmf• 13 years ago

Bugs in the Bitcoin protocol cannot be fixed while remaining compatible; that's why they have to duplicate them. They're not trying to preserve implementation bugs.

tlrobinson• 13 years ago

A "fork" of the blockchain is devastating. If you are unaware you have forked from the main chain you risk double spend attacks on all of your transactions (and mined block rewards become worthless). Thus any implementation needs to follow the exact same rules (including "bugs") for determining which transactions are valid.

That doesn't mean every bug needs to be implemented. It's possible there are DOS or remote code execution bugs in one implementation but not another. Diversity between clients is a good thing. If such a bug is discovered in one client it won't take down the entire network (except currently the vast majority of full nodes use the original bitcoind implementation)

Various different architectures may have benefits too (e.x. I like how btcd is splitting the blockchain and wallet pieces into separate processes)

pudquick• 13 years ago

The original announcement page lists some of what they claim to be the advantages of the port to Go:

https://blog.conformal.com/btcd-a-bitcoind-alternative-writt...

* integrated test infrastructure

* no active memory management

* standard formatting

* platform independent code

* simpler parallelism

* virtually crash-proof

* built-in profiling and documentation facilities

From a development standpoint, I appreciate it from the concept of a clean refactor implementing current bitcoind features (vs. layered on over time), seemingly well-written and commented code, and introducing a heterogeneity to the bitcoin daemon world - making it a bit more resilient (potentially) against future attacks against the infrastructure.

conformal3• 13 years ago

it is worth considering that bitcoind itself, as a single project, has created a nasty fork and may very well do so again in the future.

better code that is actually readable and commented means a lower likelihood of a bitcoin daemon forking against itself. it also means that it is quicker to maintain existing code and extend it to add new features.

bachback• 13 years ago

very cool stuff. Could some subcomponents be used for the JS implementation? (https://github.com/bitcoinjs/bitcoinjs-server).

jimwise• 13 years ago

Hmm. My Mom was a trained engineer. She's no longer with us, but if she'd lived long enough to select a Bitcoin wallet, I have no reason to believe she'd have picked a poor one...

(And yes, I get the irony that they probably picked this headline out of fear that "not your dad's..." was sexist.)

conformal3• 13 years ago

actually, we chose the title because it made us giggle a bit more than "your dad's". the phrase "not your mom's" is relatively common and normally applied to stuff like sandwiches, jeans, or some other somewhat-sexist object.

my mom coded cobol for harris bank for many moons :)

Tichy• 13 years ago

Still, few moms are likely to be computer experts.

petercooper2• 13 years ago

Few people are computer experts, period ;-)

madsushi• 13 years ago

I think we need a version of Bitcoin that is designed for my mom if widespread adoption is the goal.

Btcd: Not your mom's Bitcoin daemon

Related Stories