[Bitcoin-development] The difficulty of writing consensus critical code: the SIGHASH_SINGLE bug

[Justus Ranvier]

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On 11/06/2014 05:26 PM, Peter Todd wrote:> For the same reason we
don't do hard-forking upgrades of basically every
> protocol on the planet on a regular basis, even when we don't have 
> consensus problems to worry about.
> 
> Flag days are really rare in engineering, and for good reason.


This explanation is completely incoherent.

Because Bitcoin has a extra consensus requirements, requirements which
are really rare in engineering, the necessity of fixing bugs is even
greater.

There are two general ways to fix bugs: either as part of a
controlled, planned, and managed process, or as a response to an
immediate disaster.

The alternative to scheduling and planning the upgrades which are
necessary to fix the bugs in the protocol, where such fixes can be
written, tested, and documented at leisure, is to wait for some crisis
and slap on another bandaid when the network breaks again (like it did
March of last year).

Who benefits from not fixing bugs in Bitcoin?

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