📅 Original date posted:2014-04-22
📝 Original message:On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Tamas Blummer <tamas at bitsofproof.com> wrote:
> Yes, it is current norm. I am questioning if we should hang on to it in
> BIPs.
>
> I see testnet as a tool for a certain type of testing. Its existence is
> likely a consequence of Satoshi not writing unit tests and having automated
> integration tests, but creating a shadow chain to try things out, mostly
> manually.
Satoshi didn't create testnet. Testnet exists so you can do public
tests involving multiple people and services, so you can have shadow
versions of sites and services interacting with each other and trading
worthless tokens. Importantly, testnet also creates a public live fire
environment where grey hats can try out their attacks while minimizing
damage (and it's been very successful at this). Testnet is not an
alternative to the unit and integration tests that exist in Bitcoin
core but exists for more or less completely different reasons.
> Above leads me thinking that testnet is far less important than to be
> addressed in every future BIP.
Testnet is not normally addressed in BIPs at all, except for soft fork
bips that had compressed deployment schedules on testnet. For address
like specification we have always used a version byte and there is a
common encoding for version bytes that flags the network ID in the
byte.
Gregory Maxwell [ARCHIVE] /
npub1f2…crwet
2023-06-07 15:17:14
in reply to nevent1q…56he
Author Public Key
npub1f2nvlx49er5c7sqa43src6ssyp6snd4qwvtkwm5avc2l84cs84esecrwetPublished at
2023-06-07 15:17:14Event JSON
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"pubkey": "4aa6cf9aa5c8e98f401dac603c6a10207509b6a07317676e9d6615f3d7103d73",
"created_at": 1686151034,
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2014-04-22\n📝 Original message:On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Tamas Blummer \u003ctamas at bitsofproof.com\u003e wrote:\n\u003e Yes, it is current norm. I am questioning if we should hang on to it in\n\u003e BIPs.\n\u003e\n\u003e I see testnet as a tool for a certain type of testing. Its existence is\n\u003e likely a consequence of Satoshi not writing unit tests and having automated\n\u003e integration tests, but creating a shadow chain to try things out, mostly\n\u003e manually.\n\nSatoshi didn't create testnet. Testnet exists so you can do public\ntests involving multiple people and services, so you can have shadow\nversions of sites and services interacting with each other and trading\nworthless tokens. Importantly, testnet also creates a public live fire\nenvironment where grey hats can try out their attacks while minimizing\ndamage (and it's been very successful at this). Testnet is not an\nalternative to the unit and integration tests that exist in Bitcoin\ncore but exists for more or less completely different reasons.\n\n\u003e Above leads me thinking that testnet is far less important than to be\n\u003e addressed in every future BIP.\n\nTestnet is not normally addressed in BIPs at all, except for soft fork\nbips that had compressed deployment schedules on testnet. For address\nlike specification we have always used a version byte and there is a\ncommon encoding for version bytes that flags the network ID in the\nbyte.",
"sig": "a516f861a43a34e2eba703d772ae85fc05e19274c7df30f97f5d949cc323d98d111f4b45058c37c4e1750ebcf9bde56cd9dd809282339207f9b1de1f9564fd78"
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