From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from sog-mx-4.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com ([172.29.43.194] helo=mx.sourceforge.net) by sfs-ml-2.v29.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1RMjI2-0003VU-Sm for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Sat, 05 Nov 2011 16:40:18 +0000 X-ACL-Warn: Received: from nm30-vm2.bullet.mail.ne1.yahoo.com ([98.138.91.130]) by sog-mx-4.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com with smtp (Exim 4.76) id 1RMjI2-0002nD-6Z for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Sat, 05 Nov 2011 16:40:18 +0000 Received: from [98.138.90.51] by nm30.bullet.mail.ne1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 05 Nov 2011 16:40:12 -0000 Received: from [98.138.89.194] by tm4.bullet.mail.ne1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 05 Nov 2011 16:40:12 -0000 Received: from [127.0.0.1] by omp1052.mail.ne1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 05 Nov 2011 16:40:12 -0000 X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 843935.73925.bm@omp1052.mail.ne1.yahoo.com Received: (qmail 71104 invoked by uid 60001); 5 Nov 2011 16:40:12 -0000 X-YMail-OSG: q1CAt1wVM1n19XX8hHra1sR.LQRo2Gb15RZt4bCZUsnII7s FiO8lcojrXfJ8ps3WNDxOYzRFZ9uQIUNNAGZchqMvJjsB10gyb3vlDM5Xv4z Usub_7nB4MjcOARq.KLdUPxvFsXjWpYpftInkMbxYkUgKLV50ze0NMtZUqDK 6q0QierWreSIu.jEnBrcBLrP5I_g7OrWYW0EHiyiQ6E3PqMq7I8sWSBq82zM jVVJ5Pd97tRGL13.yMv8wK33jqWYvGjLyiTjAMSWeR.7ufmEVjynb10gSiBD v8ylI19sToh6xN7hH3kgtq7tRwcUspDd7gTB6SvbYoECY3wqah_b9iOAOiQt grzy6_bCKFenZBKhEKhFeQlL9ekp3Pu_pH61DaCopnK6DvxSL_CuHX7g6TA- - Received: from [2.97.171.28] by web121017.mail.ne1.yahoo.com via HTTP; Sat, 05 Nov 2011 09:40:12 PDT X-Mailer: YahooMailWebService/0.8.115.325013 References: <1320268981.72296.YahooMailNeo@web121003.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1320507589.87534.YahooMailNeo@web121019.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <201111051229.16790.luke@dashjr.org> Message-ID: <1320511212.70648.YahooMailNeo@web121017.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2011 09:40:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Amir Taaki To: "bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net" In-Reply-To: <201111051229.16790.luke@dashjr.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="-71337780-990759556-1320511212=:70648" X-Spam-Score: -0.3 (/) X-Spam-Report: Spam Filtering performed by mx.sourceforge.net. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. -0.0 RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE RBL: Sender listed at http://www.dnswl.org/, no trust [98.138.91.130 listed in list.dnswl.org] 0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is commonly abused enduser mail provider (zgenjix[at]yahoo.com) -1.2 RP_MATCHES_RCVD Envelope sender domain matches handover relay domain 1.0 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message -0.1 DKIM_VALID_AU Message has a valid DKIM or DK signature from author's domain 0.1 DKIM_SIGNED Message has a DKIM or DK signature, not necessarily valid -0.1 DKIM_VALID Message has at least one valid DKIM or DK signature X-Headers-End: 1RMjI2-0002nD-6Z Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Lock protocol version numbers X-BeenThere: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: Amir Taaki List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2011 16:40:19 -0000 ---71337780-990759556-1320511212=:70648 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Saturday, November 05, 2011 12:17:58 PM Christian Decker wrote: >> Sorry for shooting this approach down, but I'm against it. User-agent >> strings are an extremely bad idea as it would lead developers to start >> making communication choices depending on the client type. > This can be necessary in some cases. What happens when some popular client is > found with a subtle bug, and cannot otherwise be differentiated from other > similar-functionality clients? I have found User-Agent very valuable when > dealing with the wide variety of miner bugs when I have enabled new > functionality/behaviour on Eligius. I can agree with this point though. If clients break the network protocol/do not comply properly with it, they should be disconnected and shunned. Hard love. We don't want any ambiguity in the protocol. Fail hard and fast. However my feeling about the user-agent string is that it is a vanity item, but here we'd be enforcing a format that everybody can understand and read. Lets say with libbitcoin- I'm sure that users of libbitcoin would like to have their client name in the string somehow. This was we can quickly understand which code-bases are being used and all the variants that exist build on those code-bases. Together with system information (how many Linux users are there?) and various system settings (how many 32bit users are there), and so on. ---71337780-990759556-1320511212=:70648 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii

On Saturday, November 05, 2011 12:17:58 PM Christian Decker wrote:
>> Sorry for shooting this approach down, but I'm against it. User-agent
>> strings are an extremely bad idea as it would lead developers to start
>> making communication choices depending on the client type.
> This can be necessary in some cases. What happens when some popular client is
> found with a subtle bug, and cannot otherwise be differentiated from other
> similar-functionality clients? I have found User-Agent very valuable when
> dealing with the wide variety of miner bugs when I have enabled new
> functionality/behaviour on Eligius.

I can agree with this point though. If clients break the network protocol/do not comply properly with it, they should be disconnected and shunned. Hard love. We don't want any ambiguity in the protocol.

Fail hard and fast.

However my feeling about the user-agent string is that it is a vanity item, but here we'd be enforcing a format that everybody can understand and read. Lets say with libbitcoin- I'm sure that users of libbitcoin would like to have their client name in the string somehow. This was we can quickly understand which code-bases are being used and all the variants that exist build on those code-bases.

Together with system information (how many Linux users are there?) and various system settings (how many 32bit users are there), and so on.
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