MIME-Version: 1.0
In-Reply-To: <CAJN5wHXRwQZ6YmiZiCE9Gx4d-3FTzy1Zv7i2noia0mwtRwVL+w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <d17549688c0c747b2077c1f6f96b6445@xbt.hk>
	<CAJN5wHV-qyOcEw5spQc74nT7_b29WMiDTmi4Jj0ri_rGCQz2ng@mail.gmail.com>
	<E9543641-9D73-4A00-9CB3-FAB62BFB490E@gmail.com>
	<CAJN5wHXRwQZ6YmiZiCE9Gx4d-3FTzy1Zv7i2noia0mwtRwVL+w@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2015 11:29:48 +0200
Message-ID: <CABm2gDp69g8H4Was2qzixPq3qwQ_smzzeFpE+y2GYEK6F4kUrw@mail.gmail.com>
From: =?UTF-8?B?Sm9yZ2UgVGltw7Nu?= <jtimon@jtimon.cc>
To: Danny Thorpe <danny.thorpe@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin is an experiment. Why don't we have an
 experimental hardfork?
Precedence: list

On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 11:06 PM, Danny Thorpe via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
> Ya, so?  All that means is that the experiment might reach the hard fork tipping point faster than mainnet would. Verifying that the network can handle such transitions, and how larger blocks affect the network, is the point of testing.
>
> And when I refer to testnet, I mean the public global testnet blockchain, not in-house isolated networks like testnet-in-a-box.

I would expect any uncontroversial hardfork to be deployed in testnet3
before it is deployed in bitcoin's main chain.

In any case, you can already do these tests using
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/6382
Note that even if the new testchains are regtest-like (ie cheap proof
of work) you don't need to test them "in-a-box": you can run them from
many different places.
Rusty's test ( http://rusty.ozlabs.org/?p=509 ) could have been
perfectly made using #6382, it just didn't existed at the time.