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152 sats \ 8 replies \ @Imyourfed 9 Nov freebie \ on: The US government wants devs to stop using C and C++ bitcoin
Yeah, switching Bitcoin’s codebase to a memory-safe language at this point would be a massive risk. Bitcoin's code has been in C++ since the start, and changing that could introduce way more problems than it solves. There have been some memory-related bugs in the past, but they were pretty rare and patched quickly. Right now, Bitcoin devs are more focused on strengthening the existing C++ code rather than rewriting it all.
Luckily Bitcoin is not a company and doesn't have to comply with those coercive mofos' demands.
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Well said!
Being a protocol, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Bitcoin Core's codebase has been C++ from the start? Bitcoin itself is just a protocol and there's nothing to stop someone from writing a version of the Bitcoin software in any other language.
So long as a node obeys the protocol rules and can interact with the other network nodes in all the required ways, surely it could be written in any language?
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Do you happen to know what languages are used for the other bitcoin implementations? Core is the biggest one, so it's the only i know the answer.
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Off the top of my head I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me if there is a version written (or being written) in Rust. There may be many more small scale projects that are in various states of functionality.
In principle though, there is nothing to stop any language being used except for the effort required by developers.
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Yeah, the only reason for not pushing for more implementations is that it leads to higher chances for bugs.
I'm ok with LN having compatibility issues between implementations, much less for it to happen at the base layer.
In principle though, nothing to stop other languages for other implementations, indeed.
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Yes, that's right, so far bug errors have rarely been found, unless the load is too large.
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Exactly!