[Bitcoin-development] Alternative to OP_EVAL

[Zell Faze]

I agree with Joel.  I think someone brought this up earlier as well.   Most OP_EVAL transactions won't be complex enough to require more than a few loops.

--Zell

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--- On Sat, 12/31/11, Joel Joonatan Kaartinen <joel.kaartinen at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Joel Joonatan Kaartinen <joel.kaartinen at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Alternative to OP_EVAL
> To: roconnor at theorem.ca
> Cc: bitcoin-development at lists.sourceforge.net
> Date: Saturday, December 31, 2011, 4:54 AM
> Wouldn't it work to restrict the
> number of executions of OP_EVAL allowed
> per transaction? That way it wouldn't allow for unlimited
> looping. If
> there's too many OP_EVAL executions during the transaction
> evaluation,
> just consider the transaction illegal. 3 would be enough
> for the
> purposes people have been planning for here I think.
> 
> - Joel
> 
> On Thu, 2011-12-29 at 11:42 -0500, roconnor at theorem.ca
> wrote:
> > On Thu, 29 Dec 2011, theymos wrote:
> > 
> > > On Thu, Dec 29, 2011, at 01:55 AM, roconnor at theorem.ca
> wrote:
> > >> The number of operations executed is still
> bounded by the number of
> > >> operations occurring in the script. 
> With the OP_EVAL proposal the
> > >> script language becomes essentially Turing
> complete, with only an
> > >> artificial limit on recursion depth
> preventing arbitrary computation
> > >> and there is no way to know what code will
> run without executing it.
> > >
> > > Even if OP_EVAL allowed infinite depth, you'd
> still need to explicitly
> > > specify all operations performed, since there is
> no way of looping.
> > 
> > That's not true.  Gavin himself showed how to use
> OP_EVAL to loop:
> > OP_PUSHDATA {OP_DUP OP_EVAL} OP_DUP OP_EVAL.
> > 
> > Basically OP_DUP lets you duplicate the code on the
> stack and that is the 
> > key to looping.  I'm pretty sure from here we get
> get Turing completeness. 
> > Using the stack operations I expect you can implement
> the SK-calculus 
> > given an OP_EVAL that allows arbitrary depth.
> > 
> > OP_EVAL adds dangerously expressive power to the
> scripting language.
> > 
> 
> 
> 
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