Re: [Bitcoin-development] The Bitcoin Testing Project

[Gary Rowe <g.rowe@froot.co.uk>]

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Hi Steve,

This looks like a good idea to me. The test suites could act similarly to
the 100% Pure Java approach that successfully fended off a lot of
corrupting influences to Java over the years.

Maybe it's worth putting together a small starter suite of tests and
showing them to the community then providing a suitable process, perhaps
through BIPs, to allow tests to be created, reviewed and updated before
getting incorporated into a reference. I imagine a BIP would cover an
aspect of the blockchain rather than a single test or test suite since
having that many BIPs would get onerous fast.

Kind regards,

Gary

On 1 August 2012 12:38, steve <steve@mistfpga.net> wrote:

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> Hi all,
>
> I know most of you have more important things to do, and not enough
> time as it is, but I would really like your feedback on the testing
> project.
>
> Bettermeans seemed ideal, it allowed for leaderless leadership with
> people being able to dip in and out of what they wanted to do.
> however it seems that bettermeans is in no way a finished product and
> is rotting fast.
>
> I would like to move away from bettermeans - whilst retaining the
> voting and sub workstream style of working.  I would like to set
> something up around MantisBT (Mantis Bug Tracker) - this is an
> exceptionally versatile bit of software with plugins and interaction
> with other testing products (everything from test setups and plans to
> test runs and results) I would go as far as saying it is industry
> standard (yeah, i know about bugzilla, etc. mantis beats them all
> hands down.) obviously we would need a wiki and other software - this
> is not a problem.
>
> I am happpy to pay for the VPS' to host this stuff and set it all up.
>
> I have quite a bit of experience with mantis and other opensource
> testing stuff.
>
> I see the testing of bitcoin to be very similar to the testing process
> in the games industry.  for those that do not know how this works it
> is like this:-
>
> A company comes up with a device (xbox/ps),
> They then publish a set of dos and donts for this device (TRC for sony
> and TCRs for microsoft.  - I wrote quite a few of the MS TCR's for the
> original xbox.)
> They (ms/sony) then test your game against these rules and depending
> on how many you pass/fail your game can be released or not.
>
> I see this as mapping to bitcoin very well, the device is the
> blockchain, and the TRC/TCR _tests_ are published so third party
> developers can see how they fair [look at gavins recent blockchain
> edge cases for an example] (ms/sony do not publish their testcases
> only the requirements)
>
> I believe that this will allow the bitcoin testing project to be able
> to cope with the stable builds, bleeding edge builds and 3rd party
> implementations all at the same time.
>
> It doesnt matter what the app is, it is its interaction with the
> blockchain, the safe guarding of the blockchain and compatibility with
> the previous/future versions that are tested.
>
> [for the bitcoin dev list]
> A little about me:-
> The below is more or less a cut and paste of some of the stuff I sent
> gavin in my initial email about wanting to be in on the project.
>
> I can back all of this up with references. I can go into more detail if
> needed.
>
> I was heavily involved with setting up the microsoft xbox european cert
> department
> I set up qa department for europes largest independant games developer
> (although they are no longer)
>
> worked for microsoft secure science designing security automation tools
>
> setup the internal pentest for thales e-security (now TITS [Thales
> Information Technology Solutions (or Trotters Independant Traders ;),
> on thier datacryptors (fpga, crypto and product) - have done full test
> cycles on hsm 8000, payshield 9000, dc2k and thier latest line of
> military spec comms equipment.
>
> Setup and pentested Thales and nCiphers credit control software (to
> fips level 4 standard - This shit bitcoin exchanges need!! I know bank
> is a dirty word in the bitcoin world, but we should be at least as
> secure as them)
>
> I currently find exploits in stuff like office, quicktime, ie, ff, etc
> and sell them to companies like ZDI (3com) iDefense (verisgn) and some
> pentest companies that require zero day exploits.
>
> however I would like to ditch this and get my bitcoin related stuff
> off the ground - with the BTP being top of the list.
>
> my spelling is rubbish, and sometimes i forget to spellcheck before i
> hit send. sorry about that.
>
> any feedback would be really appreciated. please! I feel that this has
> stagnated enough and I want to get my work out there and I want it to
> be useful. (I lost 60 or so testcases because Kev left himself logged
> into bettermeans and I added them under his account... none appeared
> on the wiki, none appeared anywhere...)
>
> There is already lots of stuff on the wiki that outlines how i see
> things holding together - but you cant see who posted what because of
> a bug that has appeared recently [meta info is just displayed as its
> meta tag, {name} on {date} wrote.]
>
> as apposed to Mistfpga on 30/8/2012 wrote...
>
> so the tl;dr
> 1 - I want to use something other than bettermeans
> 2 - I can admin opensource software to do the same
> 3 - I want to take the voting/hiearachy style from bettermeans and
> apply it to mantis and test workflow.
> 4 - I want to get some testing done asap.
> 5 - I have a full msdn and technet licence
> 6 - I have a vast array of machines [nearly 100 cores] that I can use
> to automate testing and to test different setups.
> 7 - been mining for 18 months or so.
>
> cheers,
>
> steve
>
> I do not belive this to be related, but I am not ashamed and feel no
> stigma. I have posted this on a public forum. I suffer from fast
> cycling (withing a day) type two bipolar disorder.  This has been and
> is being managed very well by my meds (300mg quetiapine fumerate and
> 30mg mirtrazipine at night) I have been well for over a year now. [and
> yes, even with these mental health problems I still hold SCE clearance]
>
> - --
> my PGP public key is at pgp.mit.edu id: 0x5016FB50
>
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>
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