Overview and Logs for the Dev Meeting Held on 2016-03-19
Open PRs, GUI commits, app/add-on infrastructure, versioning
dev diaries
core
crypto
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