Topic: Closed (Read 8666 times)

Your CEO of a company do you use .NET or have your purchased a Windows server OS to run it? If yes then you know they require you to purchase a SQL server software license. So obviously you have no idea.

Why are you recommending a LIBRARY for java. Bitcoinj is just a library to talk to the bitcoin network and have a wallet. You would have implement JSON-RPC or even a Rest API to get information and send coins. I would NOT recommend in any WEB based bitcoin project. They should use Bitcoind. While I know you could write this into a java web application I would also recommend that isn't good, a bug on the website can easily open it up to being attacked and robbed.

This thread honestly should put in the trash too much false information don't listen to anything in here and do your own research.

Don't blame me cause you got owned by DeathAndTaxes and are now changing your view. ASP.NET Framework unless you have a lot of time to make it work like pof which to be honest is not worth it and very lazy will never scale like php and python. To be honest (Probably going to start a flame war) I hate python, I hate the syntax, and I would pick python over ASP.NET for any web project today.

That is 100% false and no matter how many times you say it, it doesn't get any truer.

A SQL Server license is 100% NOT required to use .NET.  Period.  One can optionally license SQL Server and no license is required at all to develop on the .Net Framework.  Many .Net applications use MySQL as a datastore.  To use SQL Server requires a license.  To use SQL Server and not use .Net still requires a license.  Not sure how many times people have to say it before you get it.

.Net Framework =/=  SQL Server

Your ignorance is showing.  

What are you talking about? I thought this was dead but then you feel the need to throw in new falsehoods. .NET is a software framework.  Nothing more.  

It can connect to just about any db on the planet.  No need for custom libraries.  Out of the box, day 0, in visual studio you can build a new MVC project and setup MySQL as the datastore in all of about five minutes for example.  ADO.NET, LINQ, and Entity Framework all work fine with MySQL or even Oracle (if one felt so inclined).  Data access isn't slower for non-Microsoft RDBMS.

gweedo, I read your other posts. That one in particular had wrong information though. Regardless if you made factually correct statements in the other posts, that one was just so wrong that I really wanted to reply and make corrections, despite it being old.

Which points specifically do you want me to prove? Any developer who understands scaling a database driven app would understand the concept in #1. It's called scaling up vs scaling out. I'm not going to dig up links for you, feel free to google it yourself.

#2 is also a fact. .NET is not a database, it is a software platform. You can access any database from .NET apps, including MongoDB, Cassandra, MySQL, MariaDB, PostGresQL, etc. Again, feel free to find links that disprove this. Just search for any of those db names + "C# driver" or "C# client" and you'll find the drivers for connecting to those db's.

#3 is also well understood in the programming community. It's well known that statically typed, compiled languages tend to be faster than dynamic ones. That doesn't make them better than dynamic ones. In fact, people often argue that the increased productivity and flexibility of using dynamic languages like python and ruby outweigh the benefits of typed/compiled ones. See any discussion about javascript  and typescript, C# vs Ruby, C# vs PHP.

I'm presenting some alternate viewpoints for you here. It's up to you if you want to stick with the uninformed ones you are holding or if you want to look into what I'm trying to clue you in on. I'm definitely not saying .NET is better than any other language. I think those types of statements are stupid no matter what language they are for or against.

One valid answer is that a developer might be very proficient in a particular language. It takes only a couple of weeks for a decent developer to start putting out code in anew language, but the quality of that code isn't going to be very good, and the speed of development will be much lower than if they used their "native" language. It takes about 6-8 months for a developer to become proficient in a new language. So if you are a developer and you are already proficient in one technology, that's one big +1 to the PRO/CON list of which tech to build a new project with. There are other things to consider obviously, but it's a pretty siginificant factor. I can build .NET and python projects VERY fast. It would take me at least 4x longer to build the same thing, at the same level of quality in PHP. That doesn't mean PHP is a bad choice, nor does it mean .NET or Python are the best choices for everyone. In my case, Python or .NET would probably be the best choices.

Other things to consider are licensing costs, but if you are a small startup that's not that significant. If you build for the cloud, the cost of a monthly instance of a windows web server vs a linux one is almost the same. If you use BizSpark you get to keep 2 sql server and 4 windows server licenses in production even after you graduate from the program. My approach when building on .NET is to use pgSQL when possible, or just stick with SQL server (SQL Azure is cheap, monthly fee), and build it in such a way that I could change the database to pgSQL or something else if I need to migrate to something to avoid the SQL server fees.

I am a professional developer. I currently work in Python, but have worked in Ruby, Java, and also have years of experience with .NET. I just wanted to let anyone who is reading this that gweedo flat out doesn't know what he is talking about.

1. Stackoverflow chose to have a scale up architecture. I am skeptical that this would be a good choice for most businesses, and am waiting to see if eventually their gamble will fail. They essentially have bet that their traffic will not grow faster than hardware can. So far that has proved to be true. This has nothing to do with choosing .NET, and more to do with choosing a scale up approach for their database.

They would have the same exact problem if they tried with MySQL, and MSSQL is more proven when it comes to high performance at scales that large (even when you "just swap out some software" as you put it, which by that I assume you mean optimize which storage engine you're using, but that alone still won't let MySQL scale UP better than pgSQL or MSSQL).

2. This has nothing to do with their choice of using .NET. They are using SQL Server as their database. Yes, .NET tends to go hand in hand with SQL server but there is no reason that has to be so. There are lots of projects that use .NET with an open source database like pgSQL or MySQL.

3. .NET is a compiled language, and statically typed. The compilers are very sophisticated, and the language features are very advanced. .NET actually tends to scale and perform better than dynamic languages like Ruby, PHP, and Python.


The scary part about the internet is it lets people who have no idea what they are talking about propagate bad information. I'm sure gweedo means well but his posts in this thread as uninformed. This is how .NET gets such a bad rap. I think all languages are suitable for mos tasks. I stay away from Ruby because it's become the language where all beginners flock to, and they seem to have a lot of security flaws lately. Python and .NET are my two goto languages now. As long as you have developers who know what they are doing, they can make any project work and scale in their language of choice. So most language vs language arguments are stupid to begin with, but they are still full of people spouting off incorrect information.

"Rapid application development" is precisely what got me 15+ years ago. Redmond does a fantastic job of making it EASY to develop (there is NO question about that). I don't have any experience with C#, but I did use Visual C++ for many years and it was an absolute pleasure. At the time, there was nothing else like it, so there wasn't really a decision to be made.

But I call it a TRAP. A licensing trap, that once you commit to is brutal to get out of.  I vividly remember my transition off of Redmond's tech and it involved an exorbitant amount of caffeine and extra strength visine coding the nights away. When I came out the other side, it was absolute PARADISE.

Today, the decision in my opinion, has swayed the other way. Open source toolkits are very mature and extremely well supported. They ARE still lacking as in the case of Mono vs. .NET, but you make due given the alternative. I think the real question is, "WHY would you EVER want to use closed source technology?" There are exceptions, which I acknowledge, but they are very, VERY far and few between.

Well you combined a bunch of things as if they are a single entity.

C# is an open international standard.
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-334.htm

Mono is an open implementation of .NET.
http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page

MS SQL Server is closed source however to answer the question "why"?  Rapid application development.  Nice tools for rapidly constructing entity framework when using Visual Studio and MS SQL Server.  Of course it is somewhat of a strawman argument as it isn't required.  .Net will work fine with just about any datstore SQL or otherwise.

I would like for someone to make a sane argument as to why a startup should use proprietary closed source software like .NET ASP/C# and MSSQL.

Problems was maybe a poor choice of words.  It has its "disadvantages".  I use several StackExchange sites on a daily basis (particularly StackOverflow and Android).  They are truly great for getting "quick" answers to your questions (usually without even asking, because they've already been answered). But its a Q&A format, there is little to no discussion (merely comments).

When I used the word problems, it was really in reference to how heavily moderated those sites are.  It makes for a much cleaner site (which is nice), but I truly hate having every question I write being adjusted by someone who thinks it should be worded THEIR way (I understand why they do it, but I still find it incredibly annoying). I for one prefer the RAW freedom of expression available from forums like BT (for better or worse). In the end, they ALL serve their purpose.

What problems does bitcoin stackexchange have?

I don't think I expressly recommended bitcoinj over bitcoind. I simply threw it in to cover all "reasonable" options if you wanted to implement your own blockchain services.


These FORUMS are filled with trash (and more trolling than I care to stomach). People expressing their own opinions, for better or worse, and sifting thru the ruble seems to be the only way to get up-to-date information regarding Bitcoin. If you're aware of better source than bitcointalk, I'd sure like to know as well. Bitcoin StackExchange has its own problems.

Lol, just joking around... I know I am mostly to blame for derailing this thread...

Yep, there's a good reason why good programmers are so expensive

By now, what should be abundantly clear is that: to each is own.  In regards to the front-end, I will actually concede that even ASP.NET is suitable if that is your strength (and you are aware of the licensing requirements, if you decide to extend Redmond's tech into your back-end). However, personally, I would go with either PHP (which is insanely popular in the Bitcoin community and extremely well supported) run over Nginx OR Node.js if you're comfortable using JavaScript and would like to assure maximum scalability on modest hardware.

Keep in mind that with ANY Bitcoin-related business, you will eventually have to tie back into the blockchain at some point.  There are companies like BitPay that do a very good job of abstracting a simple payment gateway over the blockchain and is a good solution if you're only looking to accept payments. However, if you need to manipulate the blockchain in anyway (like when sending coins) or integrate with it (like when you need to track transactions and confirmations) then blockchain.info provides a great API that lets you do this with little fuss.

If you decide to run your own back-end daemon (maybe for security reasons), you are certain to receive a lot of mixed advice as to the pros and cons of virtually every language, framework, platform, OS in existence (at least from the people on this thread). Stay away from Windows (at all costs) and go with whatever Linux distro you feel comformatable with (Ubuntu and CentOS are my favorites). There is an official C-based Bitcoin daemon as well as a very popular Java alternative. I'd stick with these for now as the others are very much unfield-tested at the moment.

Good luck!

Given your choice of languages and frameworks, which would you use in building a Bitcoin-related web application at this moment?

Nah we should blame gweedo instead. I wasn't clear enough in my original post since I do think that ASP.NET is OK for scaling technically, but I just wanted to point out some gotchas and hidden costs on the business side. Granted those are probably a bit out of the range of a Bitcoin business for a while, but I can always hope for crazy volume...

Also, RAM is incredibly cheap now! I'm sure MS will change their licensing tune if they can foresee a hit to the Server and Tools business.

Looks like your right on this point.  In my day job we use the even more rare "per device" licensing structure so it wasn't an area I was that familiar with.   Still I guess this proves your larger point that Microsoft licensing makes everything overly complex. 



Agree 256 was a poor example.  Beyond 64GB of RAM (today future versions tend to increase based on Moore's law) it gets very expensive.  I think part of the problem is that Microsoft has no license specifically designed for use as a website backend.  It means their existing licenses are either too restrictive or too expensive.  There would be real value if Microsoft both simplified their licensing and offered a "web server core" version dropping most of the corporate bakend functions and just provide a high memory, high compute platform for webservers.   .... I am not holding my breath.   I guess Azure may be an option I have never done testing to see how responsive their database in the cloud can be to very high loads.


Yeah I can see why you would remember it then.


I agree there is value in open platforms and SQL Server is one of Microsofts most expensive and most restricted products.  I think this got somewhat sidetracked (partially my fault).  The original claim (not by you) was that asp.net doesn't scale and is expensive.  asp.net can use any RDBMS as a backend and is highly scalable.  For a new startup SQL Server is likely the easiest route as there is going to be some skills overlap but beyond 64GB or 16 cores I agree there is significant cost.  It is something a startup would need to consider.

As a personal note:
To avoid vendor lock in whenever possible I try to keep the database code as ANSI SQL compliant as possible to allow a "backdoor" by keeping the migration costs & complexity to a minimum.

None taken.

Instawallet is extremely slow these days, almost to the point of being unusable.

The number one reason is that the Bitcoin client is showing its limits. The wallet.dat has outgrown the blockchain data in terms of disk space usage. Now, in order to simply start up, the Bitcoin client takes an hour, an actual hour, just to load the wallet file. When creating a wallet it synchronously requests the creation of a new address from the Bitcoin client making the request block while the Bitcoin client is working, which takes a lot of time (between 5 to 10 seconds). Some sends very often timeout, that's why they're all handled asynchronously in a background queue now. Anyway, the problem is not Rails here, it's that I need to purge the wallet, keep only the active private keys and perhaps make more Bitcoin client calls asynchronous.

Bitcoin-Central is another story, it needs a hardware beef-up and some performance-oriented refactorings (more caching, more asynchronicity all over the place, etc). But that's ok, Rails is all about refactoring your apps as they grow, that's what fat automated test suites are meant for.

So it's really not about the framework, you can shoot yourself in the foot or write beautiful, maintainable and tested code in any language. Usually, the people who are the most vocal about Rails are those who wouldn't know how to "hello world" with it.

I've made several attempts to explore RoR, but each time something just turned me off about the language (syntax).  As you seem to favor the framework, how about dropping me a link to a good intro "video" tutorial? One day, I could make a lunch of it.


instawallet can be slow, but i wouldn't jump to any conclusions. in my experience, with all the cryptography, ssl and blockchaining, this could be quite normal at times. even blockchain.info will freeze my browser every now and then during certain activities.


damn, i forgot all about the OP. but much more importantly, who won the contest?

No offence davout but why are those sites so slow. I reccomend instawallet all the time to new users but it seems to take forever to load. I notice the same thing with my bitcoin-central account, very slow loading pages.

FTR Bitcoin-Central.net, Instawallet.org, Instawire.org are built with Rails.
Sucks though that the OP was simply looking for a developer and this thread turned into a my-penis-is-bigger-than-yours contest.

Sorry, this is mostly off the top of my head so it could be wrong.

This is not correct, you still need to have one CAL for every user you plan to have then. It is called 'multiplexing' and is technically not usable with a website. See:

http://serverfault.com/questions/120276/how-are-sql-server-cals-counted
From the licensing info doc I posted:

Pretty sure if they are worried about having you count users then a website on the Internet is fairly incompatible with with the Server+CAL model. Of course you would have to call MS licensing to be sure (bleh.)

Sure, but in your earlier example you posted a 256 GB RAM server with the example that 'RAM is cheap.' I agree that everything is pretty small now, but to get a server with mega RAM and find out you can't use it all because you need to pay MS more $$ is very frustrating.

4, 5 i agree with... 6 (32G RAM limit) bit me personally...

Yes, there was a reason I used only PostgreSQL in my earlier post, MySQL is pretty much dead ever since it was purchased by Oracle. PostgreSQL is completely Free, with almost all of the features of something like MSSQL Enterprise and I can see many many companies starting to migrate from MSSQL or even Oracle in the near term future.

It is wonderful not having to think about licensing restrictions, to be able to use the full capacity of your hardware at all times (buy a 256 GB RAM server? why not?), and not have arbitrary features locked out. And to not worry about things like the cost of CALs jumping 25% randomly with 2012 or BizSpark's 3 year grace period that runs out and leaves you paying MS for the rest of the company's existence.

Yes. right after i posted it occured to me that you were probably referring to more front-end management. was a little to quick to fire back. i really love the efficiency at which blockchain.info parses the blockchian in real-time. if they were in fact using RoR for this, that would have been a HUGE +1 for the platform/framework.


wow! this IS an awesome site. i'll be adding this to my bookmarks. thanks.

Oh yes I do agree about not rewriting the whole bitcoin deamon in C# when making a website. When needing to use a bitcoin deamon, it make a lot of sense to use a C++ or Java version instead, or even to use the hosted blockchain.info one (which is what I am currently using). But when it comes to things like needing to generate some bitcoin address / private key pairs, there is nothing wrong with developing this in C# and than using it in an ASP.NET website.

Builtwith.com is an awesome site for checking what frameworks etc a site uses. http://builtwith.com/coinbase.com shows it was built with Ruby on Rails. http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/5287/how-are-popular-bitcoin-wallets-implemented also backs it up. Also looks like strongcoin.com uses ruby on rails.

no worries. i've never used coinbase, but it looks like a very well developed website.  i'll take some time to properly evaluate its services and the technologies behind it.

EDIT: do you by any chance have a link to the mention of RoR?
I did find this http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4839772&buffer_share=7ab7b

In what world of business is taking the path of least resistance being lazy? Making informed decisions that will help minimize the foreceable issues in a project is quite "good" business sense. Selecting tools and services that are well tested and well maintained by the very same community that you are targeting falls into that category. I didn't mention RoR simply because I don't have any experience with it good or bad. I'm sure there are others that can make a valid case for its usage with Bitcoins.


Not to say that he couldn't, but WHY would Piuk would write his own bitcoin deamon in RoR, when the C++ and Java versions are so fully developed. Does that even make sense to you?  Are you suggesting that the OP take a similar route with .NET?

I stand corrected. I was sure I read somewhere it was developed in Ruby on Rails.

EDIT: Oops, it was http://coinbase.com/ which I was thinking about.

The path of least resistance is a lazy way of looking at things. When I look at make a website, I don't look at how fast I can pump it out, I look at how good of a job can be done with it. And I believe that is where languages like C#, Java, Ruby on Rails excel. Test Driven Development works well in these languages.

There is no language of Bitcoin. Blockchain.info is the most well done bitcoin related website. And it is programmed in Ruby on Rails. Using your logic, I guess Piuk didn't make a good choice of language for blockchain.info

I was strickly speaking from my "personal" experience.  Obvisously there are many devs who can make perfect sense of the Bitcoin protocol.  My point was that having a good programmer (even the best programmer) does not guarantee that THEY will also be able to make sense of it (the cyptography stuff is far from what ~99% of programmers have ever been exposed to).  And why would you want to lock yourself into using unmaintained libraries that are 18 months?

If the OP was a .NET programmer, or had some preference towards that technology, then I would have encouraged him to "go with what you know best". However, that is not the case and it seems to make sense to go with the path of "least" resistance (I hope you would agree that .NET is NOT that path). PHP, Java, Python, C/C++ are the languages of Bitcoin.


And there's the catch!  Programs like Bizspark may actually allow startups to get in with limited upfront costs, but then where to you go from there?  Hopefully it up.  And up comes with shit-loads of licensing costs. If the value added is acceptable to you then fine, but I'm arguing that you can get the same results with alternatives that WON'T lock you in to expensive licensing agreements.

I am admittendly biased against MSFT technologies, but that doesn't make my points any less valid.

paybitcoin ... not sure where you got your info

1) Startups can get free licenses using bizspark program for 3 years plus heavy discounts on conversion at "graduation".  Any company older than 3 years is hardly a startup.

2) Your pricing but it is way off.  Standard can be licensed per user (CAL) instead of per core which is much lower cost for applications like web backend datastore.

3) SQL Server 2012 Standard is limited to "only" 64 GB of RAM but it is hardly a deal killer for startups.  To my knowledge no Bitcoin venture uses a larger database than that (startup or note).  Very few companies in the world do and they tend to be very large established enterprises spending seven figures on IT costs.

4) If the 64GB limit is a concern, SQL Server 2008 R2 is an option and it has no memory limit.

5) SQL Server standard has always supported mirroring (Safety Full).  There is no additional license for a failover (passive) cluster.  Additional licenses are only required for a load balancing (active) cluster.

6) While Windows 2008 is limited to 32GB of RAM.  Windows 2012 standard has no such limit (well technically it is an OS limit of 4TB but that is regardless of license).


Which is why bizspark was created.  Three years of essentially unlimited licenses. Then a graduation with conversion of licenses at 70% to 90% off retail.   Any company older than three years is hardly a startup.Can it be done on other platforms for less?  Sure but there is no reason for FUD.  

Still asp.net can be use MySql (or any RDBMS) as the datastore.  As you pointed out the windows license is downright cheap compared to SQL Server so that is a lower cost option.  Microsoft's big competitor for SQL Server is Oracle and there pricing makes SQL Server look downright cheap.

This is exactly the point I was trying to make with scaling up on the Microsoft stack. If you were to go to Dell and build your $8k DB server, you would still need a $3000 license for Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition (arbitrary 32 GB RAM limit with Standard; note this is better if you use Server 2012 Standard, then its just $800), and a $10,500 MS SQL Server Standard license, and even that can only use 4 of your 32 cores!!! Want to mirror your DB for redundancy? Sorry, that's Enterprise edition, (4 cores or 1CPU only even!) = $29,339.95 for each server!!!

Granted I don't keep up with MS licensing details since they change with every edition and are very confusing. But using Linux and PostgreSQL you end up with an entire redundant copy of your beefy DB server for the cost of 1 MSSQL license. This is especially bad since the MS cost doesn't hit you at the beginning on a small server when you are using their nice tools to develop it (or bizspark), but only when you need to scale to a beefy server and are already locked in.

Anyone proposing using the MS stack for a startup should be familiar with the licensing (PDF: MSSQL licensing, Windows Server licensing) up-front. It's a total mess. Even worse with VMs in the mix. That's pretty much the root of my problem with scaling with the MS stack; having just a bit of knowledge of Linux & related solutions you can run circles around an MS solution at a far lower cost. This is critically important for a startup without a reliable revenue stream.

BTW, we use the ASP.NET and MSSQL server stack where I work, and I have used it quite a bit (admittedly, for Intranet-style apps, but they get a reasonable amount of traffic.) It's great as a technical solution, but has a bad value proposition as a web startup solution.
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Sorry, this counts as a troll thread. Granted it was a reply to a troll thread but I don't think that's the proper counter-troll response.

gweedo,

Do you have to angrily troll every thread you participate in??

I noticed you advertise "Java, PHP, HTML/CSS Programmer for Hire!"

You're really not doing yourself or your business much good with these kind of post.

Based on your posts, If I was 12 and met you on 4chan and wanted to create a justin beiber fan site I might hire you.

But for anything related to btc, probably now.

I'm just saying...

 

Encryption / Hashing is decided on a case by case basis. Usually when dealing with passwords I would use hashing / salting of the password. However depending on what I want to do with a bitcoin private key would depend on how I would store it.

And yup, you nailed the head on that, I use an ORM since I don't take time to learn about security.

Actually no. I'm the kind of guy that uses a ORM (specifically http://www.mindscapehq.com/products/lightspeed) so I don't have to concentrate on making sure queries are escaped. I'm also the kind of guy that uses encryption / hashing when storing sensitive data. But thanks for sharing your concern.

If you read the article and look at how there setup is, they obviously are locked into a scenario where they can't even change databases, so the only way they can scale is with hardware. Now you can get more performance out of MySQL but either changing the database engine, or even using a mysql build that has beter performance and is tested. Kinda like twitter. SO the point I am trying to get across is that with ASP.NET and C# the only way to scale is thru hardware, and with other options you can just switch out some software and then you can do hardware scaling. So yea what would you want to do spend cash as a startup on hardware? Or go with this proven software that is free?

actually I have been digging quite deep into the bitcoin protocol, I can tell you now that I have spent a lot more than 100 hours making sense of how the protocol works. Even though Bouncy Castle did make life easy.

What makes a language "good" for bitcoin? .NET does a perfectly good job. I can make the same website in .NET as I can in PHP, in a less amount of time without having to pay for additional software.

(I really don't see the need for requiring bitcoin specific help for .NET when I understand the protocol myself and can implement the code myself. Which I would much rather do anyway, that way I can ensure the code is loosely coupled and I can write unit tests for it)
 
You are wrong. I have found it quite handy being able to generate bitcoin addresses, as well as using https://blockchain.info/pushtx to push transactions to the network. No need to use a bitcoind.

You are right in that it is NOT necessary, but it sure does help.  I would guess that you've never dug that deep into the Bitcoin protocol.  I have very much respect for anyone who can even understand it.  I've dedicated 100+ hours in trying to comprehend all of the crypto-jargon and its been a slow, uphill battle. My point being that if and when you need to customize / tweak your code (for some specific use case), unless you've got some sort of crypto-analyst (is that a real word?) on your team, you may find it hard pressed to achieve your goals.

BTW, the first link you sent is to a library that hasn't been updated since Oct '11 and the second was June '11. I'm sure at some point, someone thought it was a good idea to port that Java code, but it hasn't been touched since. And a .NET (dot net, ASP) search on SE came up quite skimpy (I count 2). I'm very sure there are ample and perfectly good uses for .NET, but Bitcoin is NOT one of them.

If you look at my other post I have pointed out a lot of security bugs in RoR and php has the least since it has the bigger amount of users. Also I would think python would be in the same boat as PHP and ASP.NET in with RoR.

Yes stackexchange is built on ASP.NET BUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT they have System engineers that have put a lot machines and hardware at the problem, maybe you should take a look at this

http://highscalability.com/blog/2009/8/5/stack-overflow-architecture.html

http://code.google.com/p/bitcoinsharp/ and http://bitcoincs.codeplex.com/

Also - I don't think it is necessary to have language specific support for bitcoin. There is a lot of information on how bitcoin works on the wiki as well as on http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/

Since this thread derived a bit to security & implementation concepts, I don't think I'm too off topic and it reminded me of a use case for a smartcard wallet which might not be obvious to everybody - server side security.

You can support X * chips transactions per second on a server with a very good security level for cheap - an attacker will need to keep connected to the server in order to do something useful.



Of course if you plan to compete with Visa and Mastercard, old fashioned Hardware Security Modules are still recommended, but don't come with the same price tag 

(crossposted to my own thread with more details)

I would like to just chime in again.  As I this thread has made quite obvious, the framework, language, protocols that you enventually choose are very much debatable. When discussing "specifically" a Bitcoin business, which is what the OP has stated is his intention, I restate that security should be regarded as critical to your success. One bad hack and the results are disasterous as several Bitcoin business have already found out (the hard way). As much as I am enjoying the "friendly" banter, the point is sorely being missed here. Just go with what works for YOU.


I was unaware of Redmond's Bizspark program, as I got out of ASP well before 2008.  This is certainly a step in the right direction (a baby step at that), but nonetheless they are obviously trying to become more startup-friendly. I'd also like to mention that IE10 is again a great step in the right direction.  FINALLY, I mean FINALLY deciding to conform to the industry standards (so I don't have to build a website for EVERYONE and then IE).  If they make a version for Mac or Linux I think I'd actually be willing to install it and give it a test run.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I've found little to absolutely no ASP.net support when it comes to Bitcoin.  Now, I will say that I haven't really been looking so I could have easily overlooked that fact. Back to the point, IMO the OP will probably find a smoother road to success going with a Bitcoin-friendly platform/framework/language like PHP and/or Python (I don't think C/C++ is part of this debate) based on an open-source hardware infrastructure.  Things in the Bitcoin world ARE moving rapidly and I don't see it being easy relying on MSFT forums and support channels to get answers to your (Bitcoin security related) questions.

As ALL points are valid in their own right, considering the OP (and the Bitcoin-specific nature of this business), IMO the decision is quite clear:
(WARNING: troll-bait alert)

• NO to Windows v.Anything go with Linux v.AnyDistro
• NO to IIS - go with Apache or Nginx
• NO to ASP.net - go with PHP or Node.js
• NO to SQL Server - go with MySQL (not my first choice) or PostgreSQL or FirebirdSQL (my personal favorite), even MongoDB seems to be quite interesting

You won't have to worry about licensing fees EVER-EVER and support will be plentifully abundant in the FREE forums.

For this I offer 2 bitcents,
S.

No frameworks can have bugs that can hinder security so yes frameworks do dicate security. A language can be insecure making a website insecure, so your false, all three play a role in security.

Once again an entire post where you grabbed a bunch of random words and spewed it across the page without saying anything coherent.

1) You do realize that asp.net =/= SQL Server right?  You also know that Asp.net has database connectivity for every major (and lots of minor) RDMBS to include MySql?  Building asp.net application doesn't require the use of SQL Server.

2) On SQL Server vs MySQL scaling up isnt an issue.  All modern RDBMS can scale up.  Scaling out refers to using multiple servers to distribute the workload.  Get it OUT <-----> vs UP ^.     While this can be done with SQL Server the licensing costs generally making scaling UP more cost effective.   No I doubt you did realize that.  Nothing in the article talked about how "mysql would have worked but they were stuck with SQL Server".  MySql wouldn't have worked any better and unless it is an open source project MySql needs to be licensed.

3)
Yeah of course writing a custom RDBMS is something most startups are looking to do right?  Of course that custom RDBMS would also work with asp.net (and probably any other programming language).  DB =/= programming language.  Also how much cost (labor isn't free) do you think this custom RDBMS Twitter built ended up costing.  


4)
Lastly as we pointed out these are hardware scale issues way way way beyond what a startup would face.  ASP.NET and SQL Server do scale up into the "top of the web category" with sites like stackexchange which refutes your dubious claim that asp.net doesn't scale.   

Then again someone who finds a $300 conference "outrageous" likely hasn't had a very successful career in database development so don't beat yourself up for continually spewing nonsense.  I mean these are things picked up on the job and I doubt you will learn that stocking the shelves at Best Buy is very rewarding.

http://gigaom.com/2011/07/07/facebook-trapped-in-mysql-fate-worse-than-death/ - just saying.

No either you didn't read the link or you lack the knowledge to understand what you are reading.   Asp.net has data connectivity to a variety of RDBMS including MySql and Oracle.  However switching to MySQL wouldn't provide significnatly higher throughput on the same hardware and Oracle for the cost doesn't really make sense for the type of database they need.    The only thing which would give significantly better performance is a NO SQL setup like what Google uses but Stack Exchange didn't need that level of performance so the jump in complexity, and design using NO SQL wasn't warranted.   Maybe it would be someday if they scaled larger but given their "niche" scope it is unlikely they would ever need that level of performance so the huge code rewrite for NO SQL (not MySql) isn't warranted.   The one advantage that MySQL would have is that it easier to scaled out vs scaled up*.   Since it is more efficient when deploying SQL Server to scale up vs out that means making good hardware decisions. 

Of course we are talking about a scale of 20x to 100x larger than the largest Bitcoin enterprise.  The idea that this would be a problem for a startup is kinda laughable (it is a problem most startups wished the had). I would also point out that contrary to common knowledge MySQL is not license free unless the project is open source.   As many Bitcoin ventures are closed source they so require a MySQL license.

* Scale up would mean increasing the performance of a single (or small cluster) or database servers.  Where scale out would be replicating the database across a much larger cluster to achieve similar performance.  Since SQL Server is licensed the licensing costs are lower when scaling up vs scaling out.  The drop in server costs at the high end as well as moving storage to the SAN has made scale up less of a critical issue than in the past.   RAM has gotten a lot cheaper.  Building out a database server with quad xeons (32 cores) and 256GB or RAM as well as high end SAS controller (24x 2.5" backplane) is under $8K.   Going to 1TB of RAM, SSL offloading, and off server storage array is still under $10K.

Sorry....
I would worry about anyone with a masters degree in business... getting their business advice from people on an internet forum.
fine ask specific BITCOIN questions, but high security systems design is a completely different kettle of fish.

What point are you trying to get a across? That to optimise a website you need System Engineers? Well that's kind of a given when you are looking at a scale that big.

You will have these exact same problems with MySQL when looking at that scale. You can only scale up to some extent, then you will require techniques to allow you to scale out, like using replication.

That's why I added, "for the most part". Please point out any security issues you are aware of with PHP, ASP.NET, Python or Ruby on Rails.

Yeah nothing in there was right.  Not scalable? Stackexchange is an example of a web project built using ASP.NET (2.8 million users, 13 million+ questions & answers)
As for licensing startups can get licenses for up to three years using Microsoft bizspark program at no cost.
Microsoft pulling the plug on asp.net or MVC?  Absolute nonsense.  

Just the normal mindless "Microsoft sucks" from people who have never done any professional software development in their lives.
 

For the most part, a framework doesn't dictate the security. A language/platform doesn't usually make a website "insecure", the code or configuration usually does.

You say Rails is awesome but no one has given hard facts as to why?

THAT is the truth right there .. take note.


Um, this is going to be a Bitcoin business. Personally, I think security should #1 AND #2. In the end, who gives a damn how many times your server crashes in a day, if ALL your Bitcoins magically disappear. I would strongly advise that you separate your web server from your bitcoin server as was suggested earlier. And at the very least put some IDS software on so you know what the hell is happening at all times:

• OSSEC is FREE and well supported http://www.ossec.net/
• Snorby is pretty f---in' awesome, but its RoR and I (don't know why, but) just don't like RoR https://snorby.org/

I have extensive experience working with both ASP.NET and PHP and if startup/operational costs matter at all to you, I'd say choose anything BUT ASP.NET. Relatively speaking (and I acknowledge there is obviously some value from Redmond) they are just WAY, WAY too expensive (licensing every which way you turn -- till you get dizzy and collapse). Unfortunately, many young startups find this out too late.

Just my 2 bitcents
S.

Not offering advice - just facts.   

Who is going to take the advice of a man who's icons is a fat nibble licker.

Thanks. but no thanks.

ASP.NET is precompiled, so it will always be faster than php.

You don't need to spend any money up front when developing in .NET technologies.  You can use encryption on Azure, and scale as you need to.

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/

We should not be discussing about languages here, nor should we discuss about frameworks.

There are several "camps" out there. Each of those believes, their approach is the true way, and as such is inherently secure, scalable, easy to write easy to maintain and so on. While, of course, ASP.NET, Java/JBoss, RoR, Grails, .... is an outright plain idiotic thing to do.

At the start of an successful undertaking, in most of all cases there is either one or both of the following:

• a group of people knowing each other. They share a common mindset, and when they are developers, they all belong to one "camp" and know hot to get things done. If you start this way, then learn to deal with the weaknesses of the given technology stack, but stick to it.
• otherwise, someone proceeding in a knowingly and mature fashion, keeping out quarrels and power play, setting a clear direction for the work, systematically addressing each of the relevant concerns, but doing so in a level-headed fashion, not overdoing anything.

Can't agree more!


Especially for security, when we're entering a realm of "serious business", the key point is not to build counter measures against every conceivable thread, but rather to be able to prove that you've done your due diligence regarding security. For a business, its important to be able to offload the liability for some aspects of security to other persons and institutions.

To create a somewhat stylized and hypothetical example:
An entrepreneur hires two developers to build (or rebuild) a site. But he tells them right away, that security is a concern, and thus

• that he will conduct regular code reviews with them, where they have to explain security-relevant topics and decisions to him.
• that there will be an external security audit prior to launch, and that they will be doing excess hours to fix any serious uncovered issues

So now its in the developers own interest to come up with clever and creative solutions to get a grip onto security. This, and the fact that they will regularly be forced to explain what they've done to an outsider will create a push in the direction of a more structured, architecture centric approach. Building this way will slow them down considerably for sure, so that is the price to pay. But in the end, both sides will benefit. The developers are relieved from those mind bogging discussions about the right level of carefulness and trickery, since there is a clear externally set goal to work against. Also, they've gotten a good argument to defeat pressure to move faster. And the entrepreneur, by conducting and moderating the code reviews, got a more thorough understanding of the technology and system to be built plus an external audit and testate, which is a building block for legal defence in case a real security breach happens later on.

While such an approach has proven his virtue in practice, unfortunately it's not a guaranteed recipe for success. It still pretty much depends on the personality of the people involved. Team up the "right" people in such a scheme, and it becomes a recipe for disaster 

I don't operate a serious web facing business.  Actually most successful webshops start designing their  custom code as they grow.

facebook.com operated on php/js/mysql LAMP stack until it grew into the multi-million users mark.  I believe their back end is now  C++, Java, Python, and Erlang.

Mt. Gox does pretty well on php/mysql

There are dozens of other examples. 

I just don't know Rails.  Here is someone's list of top 50 rails sites.
http://goo.gl/ekrGA

Seems a little light on  financial service site.

But like I said, It not the language as much as it is the dev's knowledge of that language.

So to each his own.

Care to remind me which
you operate ?

Rails is awesome, deal with it.

And thus, it turned into a language thread.

So here are my choices:

Python
Django
Twisted
Jinja

All the other tools mentioned also can do the job.

Big no to ruby and asp.net
For a serious web facing business:
Php
Mysql
Python

1. Open source
2. Proven
3. Scalable
4. Availability of developers
Collocated on dedicated hardened secure servers and maintained by competent devs and sysadmins and you've got a robust and secure system.

Any one would shocked to know the true extent that the legacy financial system is hacked on all their proprietary commercial grade hardware and software.  

So it's not necessarily the system / language that matters but the quality of the work of the individuals who implement your system

(And still your gonna get hacked if your system has any real value)

I know the difference between a language and a framework and proved it...  Also Sorry I didn't realize but still compare them, and if you know a better site please post it... I am not creating FUD LMAO Cause everyone chooses PHP over the Ruby OMG so much FUD. Your making FUD by calling me a moron and a fraud, anyone with common sense would have noticed it and just click on the button to order them reversely. LMAO Good try trolling, maybe next time you will get it down.

My vote would go to Scala and Play 2 for security & scalability but hey, I'm not a web developer 

How is ASP.NET horrible at scaling? If you have a developer building an application in ASP.NET MVC with scalability in mind, it is extremely scalable.
How is Azure insecure? Please enlighten me.
Microsoft pulling the plug? The way things are going now, I highly doubt that. Also I'd like to point out, from my understanding ASP.NET MVC is open source - http://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com/

ASP.NET MVC has a lot of nice things, like easy bundling and minification of Javascript and CSS. Easy to use auto image optimisation like http://imageresizing.net/.

But yes I do agree that there are more PHP developers around this scene and that for the most part ASP.NET is more expensive.

How much experience have you had with ASP.NET and PHP? I'm a ASP.NET developer and working on a Ecommerce CMS on a daily basis with over 100 clients. Previously I was a PHP programmer and have programmed several plugins for forums systems (in particular vBulletin and IPB). I don't like it when people start making posts without actually being able to backup their claims.

EDIT: Not to mention the absolutely sexiness of LINQ in ASP.NET

I'm going to have to side with gweedo as well... ASP.NET is horrible for scaling. Not technically, although the things POF.com have had to do to make it run well are pretty damning, but financially. A startup could really put to better use the $800 spent on each Windows Server license, not to mention the $2500+ for a MSSQL server (1 core!!!) license. Even their bizspark stuff has costs looming in the future. Also, for a Bitcoin web site you don't want to touch Azure for security reasons (at least not for the backend.)

Personally, I see lots of .NET shops considering moving off of the framework in general since Microsoft is very sketchy on the roadmap with WinRT/Windows 8 and especially with the disconnect between ASP.NET and the web. MVC is a step in the right direction but I don't think it has enough traction to be viable long term. Also, if Microsoft ever pulls the plug, you get stuck...

Python all the way!!!

Edit: oh yeah, you should ping all the people that posted in this topic: Anyone looking for work? (Lol, none of them are .NET devs)

I disagree, security should not be your #1 concern when choosing a language. Almost all your mainstream languages can be security, Ruby on Rails, Java, ASP.NET, PHP. I believe your main concerns when choosing a language are:

There are a couple of questions you need to ask yourself:

Business Perspective
Will it be hard to find more developers to work on it? (If you look at job search sites you will notice that there aren't many Ruby on Rails jobs, however there are plenty of ASP.NET jobs.

How important is cost in relation to maintainability/testability? (I know from real world experience that ASP.NET Webforms is a lot easier for developers to understand and development time is faster (therefore you can get a junior developer later down the track), on the other hand ASP.NET MVC allows for great maintainability and testability, however this does require people who are more experienced and know a thing or two about architecture (usually these developers cost more).

Software Cost? Do you have money to pay for additional software. ASP.NET has a lot of tools out there you can pay for, SQL Server, Windows Server, Telerik Controls etc.

Hardware Cost? What type of infrastructure will you need, how scalable should your site be?

How easy is it to secure? Even though most languages have the ability to be secure, other are easier to secure. Take for example ASP.NET, with that most of the time you will use an ORM which usually abstracts the security / database aspect away from the coding.

My opinion
My personal preference when it comes to choosing a web development language is ASP.NET MVC for the follow reasons:

It is really testable/maintainable - TFD/TDD (Test Driven Development)
It demands a good architecture - Once again TDD is a contributor to this as it makes you think about how to architecture the software
Scalable - Like many other languages ASP.NET is very scalable
Developers - There are a lot of ASP.NET developers out there (a lot of competition for hiring them too), however in my personal opinion, I find that ASP.NET developers have higher standards than your average PHP developer.
Familiarity - I'm an 8am - 5 pm ASP.NET Webforms developer
Security - It does a good job of giving you the necessary tools to make the application secure (a lot of security holes with php sites come from simple human error of forgetting to escape strings).

Could you PM me your skype so we can discuss this at some stage?

LMAO yes I am such a noob. Yet I never said that RoR was a language in my post you could see. So maybe you need to open your eyes. Also RoR and Ruby have had many exploits over the years http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-12043/product_id-22568/Rubyonrails-Ruby-On-Rails.html I leave that here. Also php has been around for many years so as language it is pretty secure and actually the better choice over RoR. OMG I compare a framework with a language, I have angered the gods of ruby let them have mercy on my soul!!!!!!!!! Ok so now if you do compare your logic against RoR and php, PHP still wins out. http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-74/product_id-128/cvssscoremin-2/cvssscoremax-2.99/PHP-PHP.html

Ok so I guess you would be the noob NOOB ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! gyverlb js

Sorry, you are not a noob, you are a fraud and a moron.
A moron because :

• You still don't understand what's the difference between a language and a framework.
• You use a site which bundles vulnerabilities from third party software designed to work with the sotware you wish to study (not hard to spot, the thrid vulnerability listed for Rails is one of those).

A fraud because you even filtered out PHP vulnerabilities showing only the the ones with low scores between 2 and 3 to make your case stronger by using this:
http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-74/product_id-128/cvssscoremin-2/cvssscoremax-2.99/PHP-PHP.html
instead of this:
http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-74/product_id-128/PHP-PHP.html

Pathetic attempt at FUD.

Security needs to be the #1 concern.  You've been here for a few months, you've had a taste of how Bitcoin can go wrong with the coins themselves are handled incorrectly.  And if you're selling software to other companies, you'd better be dang sure that they can't blame any loss of coins on you, or you'll be bankrupt with a stack of lawsuits in a hurry.

Noob alert: RoR is a framework, PHP is a language.

RoR had *one* recent fix for an exploit, I don't know of any other in the latest releases (so where are the exploits referred to above?).

Almost all languages and frameworks have exploits being fixed. What is important is the frequency at which they occur, how much time is spent waiting for a fix and you having competent people available to apply it in a timely maner.

Thank you for taking the time to write this out, I was not aware of this until you explained it very clearly, I will definitely in mind all of the tips you gave here. In my case, security will be one of the main concerns so I should look for someone that is proficient in it and that can build a great foundation for the system to be able to grow and expand without have major security flaws.

Choice of language is one thing, but prior to that should be a choice and decision on the architecture of your system. Even before that, there should be an evaluation and decision on the target platform to run, and even before that there should be a evaluation, plan and decision on the way you want to handle the operations part of your business, how you want to deal with software quality and security.

To illustrate that a bit: Many heavyweight banking or shopping systems are written in a statically typed language and deployed on an Application server cluster. Thus, when a company has decided upon this basic direction, typically they draw on the pool of developers and technicians from one of the relevant ecosystems (Java, Windows / .Net, C/C++, ...). Each of these come with a specific mindset and set of best practices; also, the available pool of skilled people might be different.

Also, even medium sized systems benefit from a separation between backend and frontend (presentation layer). Still the more so, when security is an issue. In that case, the backend could be based on a more heavyweight technology with well established security and quality practices, while the front-end could use a language (Ruby, Groovy, Python, JavaScript, VB) and framework to support rapid development and quick adaptation to changed needs.

There is a catch though. It is rather rare for developers to be equally proficient in both of these two disciplines. Some people are able to create you a slick website in just 2 weeks, and quickly adapt it to your ideas, but fail miserably when it comes to build maintainable code, which is easy to operate on the long run and can be scaled up as the business grows. Other people are good in the latter mentioned disciplines, but will require 4 times as long for the initial launch and aren't very responsive when it comes to demands for quick change. And finally, you'll never be able to get low cost, quick time-to-market, and high quality/security/durability at the same time; if you do your job well, you might be able to get two of these goals.

So, in the end, the success depends very much on how you, as a founder set the priorities, lead your people and ensure the project remains on track. There is no one-size-fits-all method to achieve that. You might proceed methodically, or just decide to buy best-of-breed and only do minimal in-house development, or go for the mad 80+ hours a week sprint with people excited about the goal. These decisions should be first, followed by a system plan and architecture, and only as a last step comes the decision for a specific technology (framework, platform, language(s)).

RoR is a framework written in Ruby, Ruby is a language. If I were you I wouldn't limit myself to specific languages unless it is because you want to develop the website in languages you know yourself (but as you are the one looking for the software developer, probably someone with more experience than you, I don't see why you would do that; even then, you can simply take some time and learn the language in question). I would understand more if you were to limit yourself to specific frameworks as each may have a different purpose).

BTW. Python all the way

RoR has exploits in it, and php is probably the most secure cause it is been around for a while so bugs and exploits have been patched.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1432752

ohh really, why is that? which language do you think will be the most secure in your opinion?

I would not recommend running a bitcoin business on RoR.

good question, for this project I've had different opinions as to which language would be the best, so I included all 3. Some say it can be done with PHP, but it will be built better with Ruby, then some say Python would be better than Ruby and vice versa. So just decided to include all 3 and I'll decide with my partner and see which is best. Someone who knows all 3 would be great but I'm sure that will be difficult to find.

As an experienced coder in a language you did not specify I'd like to ask why you, as a business person would pick specific languages to write software in.

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