--- layout: post title: Overview and Logs for the Dev Meeting Held on 2016-03-19 summary: Open PRs, GUI commits, app/add-on infrastructure, versioning tags: [dev diaries, core, crypto] author: dEBRUYNE / fluffypony --- # Logs **\<dEBRUYNE>** dev meeting in 5 min, FYI **\<hyc>** dingdong **\<gingeropolous>** hello **\<dEBRUYNE>** fluffypony, smooth, othe, ArticMine, luigiw, NoodleDoodle, tewinget, moneromooo **\<floofypony>** there we go **\<dEBRUYNE>** did I forget anyone? **\<tewinget>** oh, hello **\<luigi>** is warptangent around? **\<ArticMine>** Hello **\<hyc>** he's been fighting a flu last we heard **\<moneromooo>** hi **\<NoodleDoodle>** Hello. I'm here but I'm fighting the apocalypse. **\<NoodleDoodle>** of flus. **\<luigi>** keep doing it **\<luigi>** wait you're alive that's good to hear **\<dEBRUYNE>** fluffypony seems ded **\<fluffypony>** sorry **\<fluffypony>** was eating **\<fluffypony>** welcome everyone **\<fluffypony>** so as you know we pushed out 0.9.2 **\<fluffypony>** however, there are some nagging issues from the ReadTXN work **\<fluffypony>** hyc has nailed a major one as of a few hours ago **\<fluffypony>** so we'll probably do a point release on Monday or so **\<fluffypony>** also that means that the way we use LMDB has changed a bit **\<fluffypony>** hyc can you tell us briefly how we should wrapping access to LMDB, both read and write operations? **\<hyc>** Are you talking about the CRITICAL\_REGION stuff? **\<fluffypony>** yes, and the cursors vs. txns stuff **\<hyc>** ok, the critical\_region stuff actually is not a change at all. **\<hyc>** basically, when you're setting up to do a write, you need exclusive access to the DB **\<hyc>** this appears to have been a long-standing bug, unrelated to the readtxn changes **\<hyc>** so as for reads - there is now a long-lived read txn per thread **\<hyc>** and a set of read cursors to go with each **\<hyc>** the TXN\_PREFIX\_RDONLY macro sets that up in a particular function, grabbing the thread-local-storage for it **\<hyc>** and RCURSOR(dbname) sets up a read cursor for a particular DB **\<hyc>** these are analogous to the CURSOR(dbname) macro for getting a write cursor to a DB **\<hyc>** the point of all this is to avoid a bunch of malloc/free/seek when accessing a DB **\<hyc>** the old code was allocating a readtxn and cursors inside each function **\<hyc>** likewise for writes **\<hyc>** by reusing the same cursors acros a set oof functions we get a pretty good performance gain **\<hyc>** ok? **\<fluffypony>** neat **\<fluffypony>** also on the topic of stuff-hyc-did-lately **\<fluffypony>** if anyone missed it, we now have a win environment guide up on forum.getmonero.org **\<dEBRUYNE>** ^ https//forum.getmonero.org/5/support//building-monero-v0-9-2-on-winMonero **\<fluffypony>** so that should get us all on the same page with testing etc. **\<hyc>** and one success story replied to it already ;) **\<fluffypony>** we've also dropped support for BDB as the default database, and switched to LMDB as the default **\<fluffypony>** including on -bit and ARM **\<fluffypony>** BDB will remain supported for the moment, primarily as a mechanism for contributors to understand how to build out DB support **\<fluffypony>** krongle) **\<fluffypony>** shew we have the entire xmr.to team here today, that's awesome **\<binaryFate>** fluffypony good memory P **\<fluffypony>** we shared a podcast together, binaryFate -P **\<krongle>** yes - impressive nick-name recollection **\<fluffypony>** hah hah **\<fluffypony>** while we have you guys here, are you guys doing anything cool you want to talk about? **\<binaryFate>** we're doing many cool things, but nothing we can talk about at this stage **\<fluffypony>** hah hah **\<fluffypony>** it does lead to an interesting point of conversation **\<binaryFate>** seriously considering btc -> xmr direction **\<fluffypony>** plugins **\<iam6yearsold>** If NobleSir or xmr.to team could talk more about xmr.to integration at MiniNero that would be great.... also are 2 way conversions coming to xmr.to soon? **\<fluffypony>** iam6yearsold Shen's offline at the moment, I'll ask him to update the Reddit thread with some info ) **\<fluffypony>** re plugins, we've spoken briefly about options for the GUI **\<dEBRUYNE>** iam6yearsold There is a bit of info here -> https//imgur.com/a/HZL7k **\<binaryFate>** iam6yearsold for MiniNero integration you'd have to see with NobleSir. The API doc is at http//xmrto-api.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ **\<fluffypony>** but I guess we could have "plugins", of a sort, that add functionality **\<fluffypony>** like xmr.to or shapeshift integration right in wallet2 / wallet2\_api **\<dEBRUYNE>** I think we should be fairly strict on which plugins to allow **\<binaryFate>** fluffypony we wanted to discuss that plugin integration soon in fact ) **\<arnuschky>** we're quite interested to all secondary questions related to plugins **\<fluffypony>** I guess the major question becomes **\<arnuschky>** so plugin repository/db, packaging, distribution etc **\<fluffypony>** do we allow "permissionless" plugin development, or do we just have a central repo that we git submodule in? **\<ArticMine>** The main question I see with plugins is trust **\<fluffypony>** ArticMine exactly **\<arnuschky>** yes. It puts quite a bit responsibility on the dev team **\<gingeropolous>** well no ones going to trust anything that doesn;t come from core **\<tewinget>** \<fluffypony> we shared a podcast together, binaryFate -P <-- wasn't I there for that? **\<fluffypony>** considering the recent Google Chrome Bitcoin stealing malware I think that premissionless plugins are dangerous **\<gingeropolous>** as we've seen with 3rd party GUIs **\<luigi>** you obviously can't stop permissionless dev, you can discourage users from trusting it I guess **\<hyc>** we can start signing binaries, ohjoy **\<dEBRUYNE>** I would prefer the latter **\<fluffypony>** luigi I mean permissionless within core **\<luigi>** oh **\<luigi>** I think no **\<arnuschky>** it's related to how plugins are written. If it's binary blobs, it's a) hard to build, distribute etc, and b) hard to examine **\<binaryFate>** fluffypony I'd see both possible all together. Unpermissioned scale and central repo for a selected subset would ease experience and trust for user **\<arnuschky>** so if plugins are interpreted (eg python), things become a whole lot easier **\<iam6yearsold>** for the record I hated the twittter plugin idea I saw a while back **\<ArticMine>** My take permissionless has to be allowed. The end user has to be made aware who is signing and if to trust the plugin **\<fluffypony>** well the Electrum model works well **\<moneromooo>** I agree with ArticMine **\<arnuschky>** (inspection in case of central repo, but also self-distribution by plugin devs) **\<fluffypony>** ThomasV will merge basically any plugin, as long as it's not malicious **\<fluffypony>** and plugins are part of the core code, effectively just in a subfolder **\<fluffypony>** I think it's a testament to Electrum that they haven't had a malicious plugin ever **\<arnuschky>** how do they deal with the upgrade/maintenance workload? Or do they just disable broken plugins? **\<dEBRUYNE>** Is there a way to make a subfolder in the subfolder? i.e. (1) signed and approved by core-team, (2) optional **\<fluffypony>** arnuschky yeah they just disable broken plugins, and eventually they get deprecated out **\<ArticMine>** We should allow self distribution with appropriate warning **\<fluffypony>** ArticMine anyone can compile their own build, which would be the same thing **\<arnuschky>** are you planning for compiled plugins or interpreted ones? that's quite a differens IMHO **\<fluffypony>** arnuschky so **\<arnuschky>** self-distribution is a mess for compiled ones... **\<fluffypony>** I was thinking we have a repo, say it's called monero-plugins **\<arnuschky>** audit as well **\<fluffypony>** and then anyone can PR to that repo **\<fluffypony>** and that repo is pulled into the main Monero source as a git submodule **\<fluffypony>** there are two advantages to this **\<fluffypony>** 1. as it gets bigger and harder to deal with, we can step back and other known members of the community can manage that repo **\<fluffypony>** 2. if we come up with a standard set of functionality hooks, then other projects can pull that same repo in **\<fluffypony>** eg. jwinterm's lightwallet **\<fluffypony>** also it means that the compiled Monero binaries have those plugins baked in, and you can't add extra plugins post-compile **\<fluffypony>** so no need to deal with interpreted code and securing that on disk and in memory **\<hyc>** baked in means no dynamic loading? **\<tewinget>** \<fluffypony> so no need to deal with interpreted code and securing that on disk <-- if securing an interpreted plugin on disk became an issue, securing the binary would be an issue anyway, so I don't know of that bit matters **\<binaryFate>** Sounds all good to us. If distribution is done through official channels it's great. **\<fluffypony>** hyc yes **\<fluffypony>** no dynamic loading **\<hyc>** cool **\<fluffypony>** tewinget I mean we can't secure it in the path from random-site-on-the-web down to random-download-folder and eventually into secure-disk-location **\<arnuschky>** fluffypony that would be really great. **\<fluffypony>** ok - I think next steps would be to consider some of the hooks we need to provide to add functionality **\<fluffypony>** we can use the Monero wikia as a collaboration area for that **\<ArticMine>** It is a good balance for plugins **\<fluffypony>** and then we'll just update the Monero Slack **\<arnuschky>** well securing the plugins can always happen by signature - no matter if interpreted or binary **\<fluffypony>** I'm kidding, we don't have a Slack **\<fluffypony>** we're not that cool **\<aerbax>** Would these plugins allow for interpreted languages like Lua or Python? **\<arnuschky>** :) **\<fluffypony>** aerbax I don't see why not, individual CMake files in each plugin folder that allow it to produce a library fix everything **\<binaryFate>** We could financially support development of plugin architecture if xmr.to is the first instanciation of those plugins. **\<fluffypony>** if it spits out a .so / .a / .dll with the right hooks then it's fine **\<tewinget>** fluffypony> tewinget I mean we can't secure it in the path from random-site-on-the-web down to random-download-folder and eventually into secure-disk-location <-- and yet, we provide binary downloads...so "random site on the web" could be managed the same as said binary downloads **\<tewinget>** just like any random site on the web can offer binaries for download and we can't secure that either **\<tewinget>** caveat emptor has to come into play at some point, I think **\<fluffypony>** the binaries present a single attack surface, and there's GPG-signed hashes **\<fluffypony>** if we have to do GPG-signed hashes for a bunch of .py files I think I'll go mad -P **\<tewinget>** I'm not saying I think it should be one way or another, I'm merely pointing out flaws in your argument P **\<fluffypony>** fair enough **\<fluffypony>** binaryFate I think the stumbling block will be that somebody needs to champion this and run with it, and I won't be able to lead it due to travelling in a week **\<ArticMine>** As long as people can compile their own version with non permissioned plugins this can work **\<luigi>** they can always do that **\<fluffypony>** yep **\<fluffypony>** and in fact that would be the testing model **\<luigi>** we're not apple ) **\<fluffypony>** fork the repo, and build a binary to test your new plugin **\<iam6yearsold>** asking noobs to compile will limit adoption **\<ArticMine>** luigi Exactly **\<fluffypony>** iam6yearsold why would noobs be writing their own plugins? **\<gingeropolous>** for security **\<dEBRUYNE>** lol gingeropolous **\<fluffypony>** lol **\<arnuschky>** fluffypony championing the first plugin or the whole infrastructure? **\<tewinget>** What about a curated repo of plugins (as suggested) but with those plugins written in python/lua? Someone modifying the python/lua on a target's disk is the same as someone modifying the binary anyway, and python/lua plugins would be far easier to develop and audit I think **\<fluffypony>** arnuschky championing the design, I guess **\<arnuschky>** tewinget I would prefer that. **\<iam6yearsold>** how about 1 version with binaries and gpg sig and no plugins? caveat emptor for the rest **\<arnuschky>** mostly due to auditing, and there's no build/distribution mess attached **\<fluffypony>** I would prefer we remain language agnostic **\<fluffypony>** iam6yearsold that's what we already have **\<tewinget>** fluffypony language-agnostic is fine, but...well, how do you imagine that will work out? **\<iam6yearsold>** thanks pony. I like the current situation then **\<fluffypony>** tewinget read up **\<arnuschky>** ah even language agnostic. I thought up to now it's supposed to be a C++ only API **\<tewinget>** as in, how do we become language-agnostic so that we can remain so? **\<fluffypony>** [] \<aerbax> Would these plugins allow for interpreted languages like Lua or Python? **\<fluffypony>** [] \<fluffypony> aerbax I don't see why not, individual CMake files in each plugin folder that allow it to produce a library fix everything **\<fluffypony>** ^^ **\* smooth** is here **\<fluffypony>** also what if a plugin wants to call a function in the core crypto library, for instance? **\<arnuschky>** design-wise, that's sounds like a nightmare, no? **\<moneromooo>** Oh, so linked directly ? I kinda assumed it was gointg to be RPC based. **\<fluffypony>** ok well I think we're getting into an implementation discussion that's outside of the scope of this meeting **\<arnuschky>** I mean, if you don't have a small and defined API, every bigger change in the wallet will break plugins **\<arnuschky>** true ) **\<fluffypony>** after the dev meeting we can continue this conversation if you guys want **\<fluffypony>** but let's first circle back around **\<luigi>** this deserves some kind of design thread like ringct imo **\<moneromooo>** Oh, link ? **\<fluffypony>** moneromooo: "this deserves" **\<fluffypony>** so nothing yet **\<moneromooo>** "like ringct" **\<fluffypony>** oh **\<fluffypony>** I see what you were asking **\<luigi>** oh **\<moneromooo>** Oh **\<fluffypony>** OH **\<luigi>** "like ringct is supposed to get" **\<moneromooo>** Fair enough. **\<fluffypony>** so basically this is all luigi's fault **\<luigi>** warp was gonna go it!@ **\<gingeropolous>** its true. i mis-called out luigi on that one **\<fluffypony>** warptangent is off sick at the moment **\<luigi>** yes **\<luigi>** so I blame that **\<fluffypony>** I blame Canada **\<fluffypony>** ok back on track **\<fluffypony>** since the last meeting the bulk of the PRs have been bug fixes **\<fluffypony>** and changes to the way we access the DB as discussed at the beginning **\<fluffypony>** we also had a huge discussion about how to handle mixins below the minimum in the RPC call **\<fluffypony>** which was then implemented in #715 **\<fluffypony>** I'm also going to try to personally spend some time on the text that users see, things like the level 0 logging output and the CLI flag help **\<luigi>** oh I was gonna do that **\<luigi>** but then I didn't **\<fluffypony>** luigi we can do it together **\<luigi>** awwww **\<fluffypony>** I can show you the world, shining shimmering splendid **\<gingeropolous>** take you wonder by wonder **\<fluffypony>** lol **\<fluffypony>** also #728 was a little contentious **\<fluffypony>** so we created a company called Mixinstream that has hired all the contributors **\<palexander>** heh heh **\<fluffypony>** and gingeropolous has launched Monero Classic **\<gingeropolous>** ( sorry ) **\<fluffypony>** -P **\<fluffypony>** ok so #728 is Ilya's work as part of the GUI effort **\<dEBRUYNE>** Can I launch unlimited? **\<fluffypony>** he was struggling with wallet2, and decided to break it out into something more logical and usable **\<fluffypony>** (to him at any rate) **\<ArticMine>** What makes it contentious? **\<fluffypony>** ArticMine I'll get to that now **\<fluffypony>** he's unintuitively called it wallet2\_api, which is a little confusing **\<fluffypony>** but basically a lot of it is a wallet2\_api call which then does little additional logic, and mainly just passes stuff back to wallet2 **\<fluffypony>** and there's a lot of DRY-violating code because of it **\<fluffypony>** obviously there was some push back, not to prevent merging it **\<fluffypony>** but more to understand the thought process **\<moneromooo>** Define DRY ? **\<iam6yearsold>** DRY violating scares the shit out of me **\<gingeropolous>** https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%t\_repeat\_yourself **\<gingeropolous>** maybe **\<fluffypony>** yes **\<fluffypony>** iam6yearsold DRY violations are just where you have a piece of code in two places **\<fluffypony>** so any changes have to happen in both **\<fluffypony>** we can treat the DRY-violating code as a temporary issue, though **\<iam6yearsold>** two places = more opportunity for error **\<fluffypony>** as we're going to wait until Ilya is done with it **\<ArticMine>** Which makes maintenance much harder **\<fluffypony>** and then we'll either drop wallet2 and replace it with the new wallet API **\<fluffypony>** (ie. replace the simplewallet calls as well) **\<fluffypony>** or if it's just a pointless layer we'll have to go the opposite route **\<fluffypony>** and change his Qt callers to use wallet2 **\<fluffypony>** as it stands it's kinda undecided and we'll have to see how Ilya goes **\<ArticMine>** Is Ilya aware of the concern? **\<fluffypony>** ArticMine yes, we had some discussion on the PR, and othe has also spoken to him afaik **\<fluffypony>** he was responsive on the PR comments, but this isn't Bitcoin **\<fluffypony>** we don't ACK NACK utACK for years before merging somethingm **\<fluffypony>** aintnobodygottimeforthat.gif **\<luigi>** utNACK **\<fluffypony>** luigi #networknerd **\<moneromooo>** utACK was not a typo ? **\<luigi>** no **\<luigi>** means untested **\<luigi>** conceptACK or similar **\<fluffypony>** yeah **\<fluffypony>** moneromooo https//lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/-December/71.html **\<fluffypony>** if you're interested **\<hyc>** crap **\<fluffypony>** LOL **\<fluffypony>** PasteGate 2.0 **\<gingeropolous>** internets **\<othe>** ur pasting skills suck **\<dEBRUYNE>** Hahah **\<fluffypony>** othe pasting is a scam **\<hyc>** that's how I write all my patches **\<fluffypony>** I just copy-and-paste code from StackExchange **\<gingeropolous>** thats my job **\<fluffypony>** heh **\<fluffypony>** ok so anyone who can reproduce the 0.9.2 segfault please try latest master **\<fluffypony>** and if you're still segfaulting let us know **\<fluffypony>** else we're going to do a point release on Monday **\<fluffypony>** 0.9.3, I guess? **\<luigi>** hrm **\<fluffypony>** or 0.9.2.1 **\<luigi>** we're gonna run out of numbers at this rate **\<fluffypony>** yeah we are **\<luigi>** oh wait **\<hyc>** 0921 **\<luigi>** we have 0.10 **\<luigi>** nevermind **\<iam6yearsold>** will there be multiple devs in IRC at time of hard fork this week just in case? I see a few pools still on old cold and probably a few users too **\<fluffypony>** yes we just do a Bitcoin **\<moneromooo>** No chance, there's an infinity of those. **\<fluffypony>** 0.11 **\<fluffypony>** iam6yearsold yes, and we've reached out to as many of them as we can **\<luigi>** is 0.10 supposed to be for next hard fork? **\<fluffypony>** luigi fork that **\<fluffypony>** when warptangent is back we'll see how it goes on ringCT **\<fluffypony>** and make a more concrete decision as to the timing of the next fork **\<dEBRUYNE>** iam6yearsold The hardfork will approximately take place at 13:00 UTC, so both US and Europe will probably be awake **\<dEBRUYNE>** and Asia of course **\<luigi>** everyone will be awake **\<fluffypony>** even me **\<dEBRUYNE>** hawaii will probably be asleep **\<dEBRUYNE>** -P **\<fluffypony>** heh **\<dEBRUYNE>** fwiw! **\<luigi>** wat **\<Wolf\`>** lol **\<smooth>** we should also consider what else we should go in the next major version besides ringct (doesn't need to be discussed now) **\<dEBRUYNE>** uh I meant UTC btw **\<dEBRUYNE>** you muricans with AM/PM **\<Wolf\`>** who got drunk and posted about a party in #monero-dev **\<luigi>** oh **\<luigi>** then america won't be up **\<moneromooo>** The db reorg seems like a good candidate. **\<luigi>** oh well **\<fluffypony>** smooth agreed **\<dEBRUYNE>** east coast will right? **\<luigi>** sure ish **\<dEBRUYNE>** You better set your alarm luigi **\<dEBRUYNE>** :-P **\<fluffypony>** Surae is also going to be picking up MRL-6 in the summer **\<fluffypony>** he has some ideas about how to complete that **\<dEBRUYNE>** MRL-6 is multisig? **\<iam6yearsold>** I will party hard if fork happens with no drama **\<fluffypony>** dEBRUYNE: no **\<fluffypony>** https//github.com/monero-project/research-lab/tree/master/publications/MRL-%-%Difficulty%Adjustment%Algorithms%in%Cryptocurrency%Protocols **\<dEBRUYNE>** oh cool, thanks **\<moneromooo>** How do get cmake to tell you the commands it's running ? **\<luigi>** we have diff, we have db stuff, we have fee stuff **\<fluffypony**> moneromooo: I normally make VERBOSE=1 **\<moneromooo>** Thanks, I was trying V=1 **\<luigi>** I like my V=2 **\<fluffypony>** ok - any last things to add **\<fluffypony>** or can we call it? **\<luigi>** call it