Ethereum (ETH) core developers are considering implementing more frequent and smaller hard forks, according to the most recent bi-weekly meeting held on April 12.
The
question of time between hard forks — or network updates — was brought
up by the meeting’s moderator, Tim Beiko, who referenced it as an
ongoing topic of discussion. Another dev then began the discussion by
referencing core developer Alexey Akhunov’s previously expressed
position in favor of shorter periods between forks.
To
“check the temperature” of the devs’ position on hard fork timing, the
dev asked if anyone on the call was “open to hard forks as short as
three months.” The first three responses to the question were negative
or tentative, with dev Joseph Delong calling three months “too quick
[...] for turnaround.”
Another developer, Martin Holst Swende, then summarized the sentiment, stating:
“as long as we’re not tied to large hard forkes every three months. So, more like opportunity windows, when things are finished.”
Another
dev then pointed out that the team had yet to complete a hard fork
within six months, suggesting that “there a couple of things we probably
need to automate to be able to do that really well.”
The devs also referenced the topic as being previously discussed
on the Ethereum developer forum Ethereum Magicians. In the discussion’s
initial post, dated March 15, Beiko laid out the pros and cons of
smaller and more frequent hard forks, noting that the team had discussed
the topic on its dev call that same day.
Some
of the arguments in favor include that such a move would bring more
frequent updates to the protocol and would also allow the team to
separate concerns and isolate changes better and decrease the deployment
time of updates that require multiple forks. Further, the testing
process would be arguably easier since there would be fewer EIPs to test
and fewer EIP interactions to check.
Still, arguments
for larger and less frequent hard forks were also presented, such as the
fact that they leave ample time for security evaluation. Less frequent
hard forks require less frequent client updates and user coordination.
In the case of frequent hard forks, a bug in a fork also risk delaying
the next fork.
As Cointelegraph reported earlier this week, a report released by decentralized application (DApp) analytics website DApp.com revealed that Tron (TRX) has the fastest growing DApp user base while Ethereum’s DApp user base is shrinking.
Also this week, Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of Ethereum and IOHK, the company behind Cardano (ADA), criticized Ethereum and Eos’s (EOS) approach to development.
Source link: cointelegraph.com
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