So I am unsure if this type of improvement methodology has ever been utilized to such an excessive earlier than so I figured I would doc it. In a nutshell, it is kind of like test-driven triplet-programming improvement.
Whereas speed-developing our alpha codebase, 4 of us sat round a desk within the workplace in Berlin. Three individuals (Vitalik, Jeff and me) every coders of their very own clean-room implementation of the Ethereum protocol. The fourth was Christoph, our grasp of testing.
Our goal was to have three totally appropriate implementations in addition to an unambiguous specification by the tip of three days of considerable improvement. Over distance, this course of usually takes a couple of weeks.
This time we wanted to expedite it; our course of was fairly easy. First we focus on the assorted consensus-breaking adjustments and formally describe them as greatest we are able to. Then, individually we every crack on coding up the adjustments concurrently, popping our heads up about doable clarifications to the specs as wanted. In the meantime, Christoph devises and codes checks, populating the outcomes both manually or with the farthest-ahead of the implementations (C++, typically :-P).
After a milestone’s price of adjustments are coded up and the checks written, every clean-room implementation is examined towards the widespread take a look at knowledge that Christoph compiled. The place points are discovered, we debug in a gaggle. To date, this has proved to be an efficient manner of manufacturing well-tested code shortly, and maybe extra importantly, in delivering clear unambiguous formal specs.
Are there any extra examples of such methods taken to the acute?
