On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 10:27 PM, Peter Todd <p...@petertodd.org> wrote: > On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 10:05:56PM +0200, Martin Sustrik wrote: >> On 23/10/13 21:40, Peter Todd wrote: >> >> >The reference implementation is the specification - the "specification" >> >on the wiki is best thought of as a set of Coles Notes on the real >> >specification. If you don't already understand that and the nuance of >> >that statement you should assume the protocol is fixed in stone and >> >doesn't evolve at all; that statement is not quite true, but it's very >> >close to the truth. >> >> Does that imply that the notes are deliberately obscured to force >> everyone to check the source code? > > What's on the wiki is mostly the work of people who aren't working on > the reference implementation, so no, you can't say that.
Indeed, I know of few people who are familiar with the source code that use the wiki. I do think that is a pity. The openness and transparency of the protocol is essential to trusting the system (and shouldn't be limited to those digging through the source code), and for that reason alone I think it needs to be well-documented. I also do agree with earlier comments, that due to the nature of the consensus problem Bitcoin solves, it will always be the network that dictates what the actual rules are - anything else can result in inresolvable forks. If a "formal" specification were written, and we would find out that the majority of nodes on the network deviate from it in a subtle way, those nodes would be buggy in the sense that they aren't doing what was expected, but it would be the specification that is incorrect for not following the rules of the network. In short, consistency is more important than correctness, and for that reason, writing alternate implementation will always be hard and dangerous. However, I do not think that making it hard to find information about the details of the system is the way to go. Alternate implementations are likely inevitable, and in the long run probably a win for the ecosystem. If effort is put into accurately describing the rules, it should indeed carry a strong notice about it being descriptive rather than normative. If someone is willing to work on that, I am (and likely many people in #bitcoin-dev are) available for any questions about the protocol and its semantics. -- Pieter ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ October Webinars: Code for Performance Free Intel webinars can help you accelerate application performance. Explore tips for MPI, OpenMP, advanced profiling, and more. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register > http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60135991&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
