Reimplement Namecoin on Devcoin?

domob
Posts: 1129
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 11:27 am
Contact:

Re: Reimplement Namecoin on Devcoin?

Post by domob »

John Kenney wrote:I was planning to try libcoin when I get the testnet faucet set up again, since it'll be on a cheap low ram atom server (and I hope libcoin is less ram hungry) & that wont need to do any name operations, but I haven't done it yet. Does libcoin support the current testnet?
Cool, let me/us know how it works for you! TBH, I don't know about testnet - I think khal worked on that, but I'm not sure where the code is; I believe it wasn't merged back to the main libcoin repository so far, and I don't even know if it actually worked already.
BTC: 1domobKsPZ5cWk2kXssD8p8ES1qffGUCm | NMC: NCdomobcmcmVdxC5yxMitojQ4tvAtv99pY
BM-GtQnWM3vcdorfqpKXsmfHQ4rVYPG5pKS
Use your Namecoin identity as OpenID: https://nameid.org/

biolizard89
Posts: 2001
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2012 6:25 am
os: linux

Re: Reimplement Namecoin on Devcoin?

Post by biolizard89 »

John Kenney wrote:Isn't there a risk of a fork if there are two separate official implementations? Wont it be dividing (your) efforts? If there's something seriously stalling libcoin & it'll be a lot easier to bring namecoin up to bitcoin 0.9 or devcoin than get libcoin stable & supporting all namecoin features then it might make sense. Libcoin's code looks better organised than bitcoin, I prefer the separation between libcoin & any front ends too. I think I'd prefer libcoin working well over an updated version based on bitcoin (or another bitcoin fork).

I was planning to try libcoin when I get the testnet faucet set up again, since it'll be on a cheap low ram atom server (and I hope libcoin is less ram hungry) & that wont need to do any name operations, but I haven't done it yet. Does libcoin support the current testnet?
I generally agree; maintaining 2 implementations seems like a waste of effort. I'm working on making libcoin more reliable via Travis-CI tests.
Jeremy Rand, Lead Namecoin Application Engineer
NameID: id/jeremy
DyName: Dynamic DNS update client for .bit domains.

Donations: BTC 1EcUWRa9H6ZuWPkF3BDj6k4k1vCgv41ab8 ; NMC NFqbaS7ReiQ9MBmsowwcDSmp4iDznjmEh5

John Kenney
Posts: 94
Joined: Sat Mar 29, 2014 2:20 pm
os: linux
Location: Sheffield, England
Contact:

Re: Reimplement Namecoin on Devcoin?

Post by John Kenney »

domob wrote:
John Kenney wrote:I was planning to try libcoin when I get the testnet faucet set up again, since it'll be on a cheap low ram atom server (and I hope libcoin is less ram hungry) & that wont need to do any name operations, but I haven't done it yet. Does libcoin support the current testnet?
Cool, let me/us know how it works for you! TBH, I don't know about testnet - I think khal worked on that, but I'm not sure where the code is; I believe it wasn't merged back to the main libcoin repository so far, and I don't even know if it actually worked already.
There was a fork in testnet a few months ago to reduce the difficulty, I was wondering if that code had been merged into libcoin yet. If not then I can't use it for the testnet faucet.

I've got libcoin built now, it's syncing bitcoin on my atom server now. Is there any documentation at all?

domob
Posts: 1129
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 11:27 am
Contact:

Re: Reimplement Namecoin on Devcoin?

Post by domob »

[quote="John Kenney"There was a fork in testnet a few months ago to reduce the difficulty, I was wondering if that code had been merged into libcoin yet. If not then I can't use it for the testnet faucet.

I've got libcoin built now, it's syncing bitcoin on my atom server now. Is there any documentation at all?[/quote]
I'm aware of the fork, and "presumably" - since khal did both of those - his code for libcoin includes the change. But I don't think any of it is merged to libcoin so far. It is one of my next goals for libcoin, though, so that I can test upcoming work on name_new/name_firstupdate/name_update properly.

Regarding documentation, I'm not really aware of anything. I did it mostly by trial and error.
BTC: 1domobKsPZ5cWk2kXssD8p8ES1qffGUCm | NMC: NCdomobcmcmVdxC5yxMitojQ4tvAtv99pY
BM-GtQnWM3vcdorfqpKXsmfHQ4rVYPG5pKS
Use your Namecoin identity as OpenID: https://nameid.org/

biolizard89
Posts: 2001
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2012 6:25 am
os: linux

Re: Reimplement Namecoin on Devcoin?

Post by biolizard89 »

domob wrote:
John Kenney wrote:There was a fork in testnet a few months ago to reduce the difficulty, I was wondering if that code had been merged into libcoin yet. If not then I can't use it for the testnet faucet.

I've got libcoin built now, it's syncing bitcoin on my atom server now. Is there any documentation at all?
I'm aware of the fork, and "presumably" - since khal did both of those - his code for libcoin includes the change. But I don't think any of it is merged to libcoin so far. It is one of my next goals for libcoin, though, so that I can test upcoming work on name_new/name_firstupdate/name_update properly.

Regarding documentation, I'm not really aware of anything. I did it mostly by trial and error.
Documentation would be excellent if someone wants to work on it. I'm having to learn by experimentation too; so far I was able to build on Linux without much trouble. Haven't actually run libcoind yet.
Jeremy Rand, Lead Namecoin Application Engineer
NameID: id/jeremy
DyName: Dynamic DNS update client for .bit domains.

Donations: BTC 1EcUWRa9H6ZuWPkF3BDj6k4k1vCgv41ab8 ; NMC NFqbaS7ReiQ9MBmsowwcDSmp4iDznjmEh5

John Kenney
Posts: 94
Joined: Sat Mar 29, 2014 2:20 pm
os: linux
Location: Sheffield, England
Contact:

Re: Reimplement Namecoin on Devcoin?

Post by John Kenney »

I've run it & got it to sync namecoin, but it's still syncing & it crashed part way though. I haven't configured it, just using default config, maybe I can get it working better, but it seems even more resource hungry than namecoind so far. It seems to need work, but maybe less work than reimplementing it on huntercoin, bitcoin or some other alt. I still prefer how the code is structured & running a background daemon with a separate gui interface seems more sensible in the long run.

This source file is all I found documenting the configuration... https://github.com/namecoin/libcoin/blo ... ration.cpp

... I'm going to have to kill it, it's locking my little server up, too much iowait, too much ram use, maybe it's a problem with btrfs? Otherwise, it's just too much to run on a 500gb sata2 hdd with 2gb ram, in default config.

John Kenney
Posts: 94
Joined: Sat Mar 29, 2014 2:20 pm
os: linux
Location: Sheffield, England
Contact:

Re: Reimplement Namecoin on Devcoin?

Post by John Kenney »

Another option, rather than a full rebase is just to cherry pick certain patches from Bitcoin & other alts. We probably don't need everything, but namecoind is still missing some features like ipv6 & a few useful rpc commands, there may be bug fixes, etc too. Might be the best option in the short term if the libcoin rebase will take a while to fix.

biolizard89
Posts: 2001
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2012 6:25 am
os: linux

Re: Reimplement Namecoin on Devcoin?

Post by biolizard89 »

John Kenney wrote:Another option, rather than a full rebase is just to cherry pick certain patches from Bitcoin & other alts. We probably don't need everything, but namecoind is still missing some features like ipv6 & a few useful rpc commands, there may be bug fixes, etc too. Might be the best option in the short term if the libcoin rebase will take a while to fix.
As you say, it's a decent short term option, but long term it's not sustainable.
Jeremy Rand, Lead Namecoin Application Engineer
NameID: id/jeremy
DyName: Dynamic DNS update client for .bit domains.

Donations: BTC 1EcUWRa9H6ZuWPkF3BDj6k4k1vCgv41ab8 ; NMC NFqbaS7ReiQ9MBmsowwcDSmp4iDznjmEh5

indolering
Posts: 801
Joined: Sun Aug 18, 2013 8:26 pm
os: mac

Re: Reimplement Namecoin on Devcoin?

Post by indolering »

John Kenney wrote:Isn't there a risk of a fork if there are two separate official implementations?
I believe the main risk comes from having two competing implementations of the mining code. AFAIK Libcoin currently does not support mining, however, from Mike's talks I think he left the mining and wallet code largely untouched for Bitcoin. I don't really know as I've never looked at the code, however.
DNS is much more than a key->value datastore.

biolizard89
Posts: 2001
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2012 6:25 am
os: linux

Re: Reimplement Namecoin on Devcoin?

Post by biolizard89 »

indolering wrote:
John Kenney wrote:Isn't there a risk of a fork if there are two separate official implementations?
I believe the main risk comes from having two competing implementations of the mining code. AFAIK Libcoin currently does not support mining, however, from Mike's talks I think he left the mining and wallet code largely untouched for Bitcoin. I don't really know as I've never looked at the code, however.
This is not exactly true; accidental softforks would only occur if multiple mining implementations existed, but accidental hardforks would be possible anytime there are multiple implementations of block validation. That said, there are multiple validating Bitcoin implementations (Bitcoin Core, libcoin, and libbitcoin all come to mind), and so far they haven't had much trouble with this.

It can be argued that multiple implementations actually make the system more robust, because a bug in one implementation is less likely to affect the blockchain, and affected users can switch implementations until issues are resolved.

My main motivation for focusing on libcoin is simply allocation of resources given that we don't have many developers, combined with libcoin's suitability for both full and lite clients.
Jeremy Rand, Lead Namecoin Application Engineer
NameID: id/jeremy
DyName: Dynamic DNS update client for .bit domains.

Donations: BTC 1EcUWRa9H6ZuWPkF3BDj6k4k1vCgv41ab8 ; NMC NFqbaS7ReiQ9MBmsowwcDSmp4iDznjmEh5

Post Reply