Topic: ANN: Announcing code availability of the bitsofproof supernode - page 14. (Read 35156 times)

Wow, I'm really impressed! 
I haven't tested it yet, but if it works, this could become a really important alternative to the satoshi client.

Thanks for the warm welcome. Was nice to talk to you in London Mike.

I released the code since it reached the coverage needed to prove that it is for real. Not for production but to build on it as a platform.

Your points on testing are valid. They are clearly not sufficient. I plan to introduce an interface aimed for testing. That would enable
implementations to test each other.

The Wallet is not there but everything you need to stick it together in a couple hours or days depending on what you want.
I did not yet figured what I wanted. But the point is that this is a feature that does not have to be common.
Do your own at your own taste and stick it in.

I do and JPA certainly does not solve for that. My poorly made point is that normalized database schema allows services built next to the
server that does not need to know about p2p or binary formats. The feasibility of pruning or different levels of that are now
in the hand of the implementor of the persistence layer.

Nice! The code looks clean.

caveden, there have been several other full reimplementations. BitcoinJS is one, I think UfaSoft made one, and actually I just finished merging code from Matt that makes bitcoinj a fully verifying ultra-prune style implementation as well (of course, it can still run in SPV mode too).

So this implementation joins the ranks.

That said, from looking over the code, I can't find a few features I expected to be there:

- Where is the wallet implementation? How would I implement the PingService from the bitcoinj examples directory?
- Where are the tests proving conformance with all of Satoshis bugs? I see a few tests but they are fairly minimalist.
- API documentation

eg, there are script tests in bitcoinj (since yesterday) and the Satoshi client that verify the execution of every script opcode is correct in both positive and negative ways. It'd be nice to see them. The hard part of making full nodes is not implementing the protocol, it's ensuring you got every detail right.

Re: your comments about monolithic design. With respect to your experience, I don't think simply using Spring makes something "modular" vs "monolithic". Allowing people to build powerful apps is as much about documentation, examples, well-specified callback interfaces as it is about good use of OO design. For example, there are a variety of listener interfaces throughout bitcoinj, and each one has well specified and consistent behaviour: listeners run locked, they can remove themselves during execution but not other listeners. Also most of them document allowed re-entrancy. This sort of thing makes writing apps a lot easier.

I'd be the first to admit that bitcoinj could use some loving refactoring. The API is in places quite messy. There isn't really a good enough block chain API. The Wallet needs splitting out into customizable policy objects. That said, you don't seem to have a Wallet object at all unless I somehow missed it, so I don't feel too bad about that It looks the way it does because bitcoinj is already being used to write all kinds of apps, from end-user facing wallets to SatoshiDice. So at the moment we tend to prioritize new features over refactorings and API churn that makes it hard to keep up.

In future there might be a bitcoinj2 effort that re-organizes things a bit.

By the way:


I'm not sure you understand what ultraprune does or why the performance is higher. Firstly, it does swap out bdb for LevelDB, which is not exactly a difficult change. But more importantly it reduces the size of the databases working set by fundamentally re-organizing how data is used. It doesn't matter what database backend you use or how easy it is to swap in or out if the way you store data is inefficient.

Because one size does not fit all. Bitcoind is a monolithic hard to maintain code base.
Yes, and you can stick in whatever high performance provider your budget allows. This is for the
terabytes coming. Normalization allows to build services on top of the database
that do not have to deal with P2P or binary formats.

The effort of bitcoind team made all this possible. I have highest regards, but I do not think the code
they inherited is for the future.

I would rather worry if bitcoind can keep up with innovation, now that a modular design is available
people can easily stick their modules into. You do not have to wait for a new RPC call to add a new
type of signature. You do not have to wait for ultraprune, just stick in a higher performance database.

BTW: I buit enterprise systems, quant code and algo trading for decades. Look me up on linkedin if curious.  

Because it does not.

No idea if it's "better than bitcoind", actually it'd be quite presumptuous to say so.

But usage of JPA is already an interesting point... Different databases could be plugged. Databases that support clustering or partitioning could be used.
"Fully normalized schema" doesn't always go well with high performance though...

I haven't checked the code or anything, but if it's for real, wouldn't this be the first alternative full node implementation of bitcoin?

If anything, it's an improvement in 'diversification'. And I'm glad it uses technologies I'm familiar with.
I wonder how the author plans to keep up with all the development done in bitcoind though... they have many competent people improving the code and adding functionality. Just to keep up would be an enormous effort. But anyway, writing such a thing was certainly an enormous effort already!

By the way, OP, why not reuse BitcoinJ code if it fits?

Details please?
What so "super" in this code that make it better from standard bitcoind?

TL;DR
   Announcing code release of the bitsofproof supernode.
   A modular Bitcoin protocol implementation to build bitcoin enterprises and server nodes on.

WHY
    Satoshi is a genius, but his implementation of the protocol is hard to maintain and extend.
    I believe that peers will specialize and this implementation is suited for the big server,
    tailored for some heavy lifting tasks, not for a mobile.

WHERE
   https://github.com/bitsofproof/supernode.git
   
FEATURES
   Pure Java source code released under Apache 2.0 license.
   Radically modular Assembly using Spring. Extensible and reducible to what you need.
   High performance P2P engine using Java NIO.
   Block storage using JPA into a fully normalized schema.
   Full support for multisig and pay to hash, including address maintanance.
   Parallel validation of transactions of a block.

DEPENDENCIES
   Spring, Bouncy Castle, SL4J
   Does NOT share any code with Satoshi or bitcoinj clients.

   
LIMITATIONS
   Not tested enough for production, therefore does not yet answer getheader and getblock
   and does not feature a wallet.

CONTRIBUTIONS
   Contributions are welcome. Add your own features to the modular design.

WHO
   Tamas Blummer alias grau [email protected] wrote this implementation in his spare time at home.
   
DONATIONS
    Please honor the time I invested and motivate me to continue by donating to:
   
    13xhxy21to93Lrb7d4ssZVaMnFtQVvRkSk