📅 Original date posted:2013-10-24
📝 Original message:On 23/10/13 23:07, Pieter Wuille wrote:
> In short,
> consistency is more important than correctness.
That's a nice and concise way to put it and any potential protocol
documentation should start with a statement like that.
> 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.
One interesting question is whather alternative implementations are more
likely to get it wrong because the protocol description is wrong or
because the authors misunderstood the reference implementation source code.
Extensive documentation of the source code, a la Knuth's literate
programming, may be some kind of a middle ground.
> 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.
Ok. Several people expressed an interest in the topic, so I'll give it a
try and see how it fares.
Martin
Martin Sustrik [ARCHIVE] /
npub15p…756lp
2023-06-07 15:07:48
in reply to nevent1q…wrkj
Author Public Key
npub15pec9usy0vcfawurq0ffrwlrv4trpqv84l02af5h53jw05af83fsn756lpPublished at
2023-06-07 15:07:48Event JSON
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2013-10-24\n📝 Original message:On 23/10/13 23:07, Pieter Wuille wrote:\n\n\u003e In short,\n\u003e consistency is more important than correctness.\n\nThat's a nice and concise way to put it and any potential protocol \ndocumentation should start with a statement like that.\n\n\u003e However, I do not think that making it hard to find information about\n\u003e the details of the system is the way to go. Alternate implementations\n\u003e are likely inevitable, and in the long run probably a win for the\n\u003e ecosystem. If effort is put into accurately describing the rules, it\n\u003e should indeed carry a strong notice about it being descriptive rather\n\u003e than normative.\n\nOne interesting question is whather alternative implementations are more \nlikely to get it wrong because the protocol description is wrong or \nbecause the authors misunderstood the reference implementation source code.\n\nExtensive documentation of the source code, a la Knuth's literate \nprogramming, may be some kind of a middle ground.\n\n\u003e If someone is willing to work on that, I am (and likely many people in\n\u003e #bitcoin-dev are) available for any questions about the protocol and\n\u003e its semantics.\n\nOk. Several people expressed an interest in the topic, so I'll give it a \ntry and see how it fares.\n\nMartin",
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