Community Update 91

General

• Release

  • Node version 0.9.14 is being released RNode-0.9.14 release plan

  • The 0.9.14 includes mainly a bug fixes, optimizations, refactoring changes and incremental progress in features discussed below.

• Sprint 38 in progress
  
  

  • Main focus on (a) long proposal times (b) cost accounting (d) Casper tests independent of network layer (e) Type Safe API instead of Either (f) completing peek merge functionality (g) API to replace ListenForData@name (off-chain observability of deploy results) (h) Planning and implementation for Network safety, reliability and hardening

  • Ongoing implementation of hardening.

  • Launch readiness planning is ongoing

  • Cost accounting - implementation ongoing. 

  • Progress in long propose times: multiple streams of implementation and investigation:

    • Synchrony constraints implemented as a tunable parameter.

    • A second part of the solution is being implemented to promote efficient use of the network by sending block hashes instead of whole blocks to all the nodes. Details in https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3819 

    • Additional Network layer improvements being implemented - Casper waiting on full outgoing message queue, eliminate delays and retries in block streaming, optimal sizes for incoming and outgoing message queues https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3858

    • Investigation of Estimator performance as a source of erratic behaviour

    • Investigating suspected bug in multiple ancestor blocks being generated even without proposals

  • Ongoing - In RSpace, an API implemented for DAG discovery and block discovery, to enable an alternative to ListenForData@Name (Off-chain observability of deploy results). Relevant tickets are https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3760 https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3661 and  https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3762 and https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3812 The changes are now being tested in development as well as in use cases like Rcat. Necessary changes to Rcat being made to use the new API, so it can be tested.

  • Ongoing - In Casper, ongoing work on pre-requisites for non-game-able source of randomness for the validator to use, to pick a new validator from the 'bonding draw set' https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3195

  • Ongoing - Design and Implementation of mult-sig vault features is ongoing (should be ready for review soon) as detailed in https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3392 https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3196 https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3223 and https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3773.

  • Increased testing by Dev team - ongoing

  • Ongoing - New API has been implemented with type safety, responding to community requests.   https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2729. Please join in review and comments on the PR as well as the conversation in the #development channel in Pub-Rchain. We want as wide a feedback as possible. Will be merged only after we get good feedback from the community.  https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3839 

  • Refactoring, Optimizations and bug fixes - ongoing 

  • Exploring technical options and planning for Rhoc to Rev conversion, wallets and third party readiness - ongoing. Providing them documentation and support in node setup and testing, 

Mercury requirements and acceptance criteria

• Details on the acceptance criteria: Mercury acceptance criteria

• Please see the documentation at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/blob/dev/docs/features.md. 

• Testnet status

  • Please see RChain public testnet information to learn more about public testnet as well as a FAQ.

• Community testing
  
  

  • Sept 19 at 14:00 UTC. Please see RChain community RNode testing for more information.

Blockers to testnet-3

• TBD

Risks to code completion for Mercury

• Evaluating backlog vs current velocity 

Developer website

• https://developer.rchain.coop