Finite monetary supply for Bitcoin

Finite monetary supply for Bitcoin
2014-04-01 19:04 ` Matt Whitlock
                   ` (6 more replies)
  
From: Pieter Wuille @ 2014-04-01 19:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Bitcoin Dev

Hi all,

I understand this is a controversial proposal, but bear with me please.

I believe we cannot accept the current subsidy schedule anymore, so I
wrote a small draft BIP with a proposal to turn Bitcoin into a
limited-supply currency. Dogecoin has already shown how easy such
changes are, so I consider this a worthwhile idea to be explored.

The text can be found here: https://gist.github.com/sipa/9920696

Please comment!

Thanks,

-- 
Pieter



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-01 19:04 ` 
                   ` 
  
From: Pieter Wuille @ 2014-04-01 19:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Bitcoin Dev

Hi all,

I understand this is a controversial proposal, but bear with me please.

I believe we cannot accept the current subsidy schedule anymore, so I
wrote a small draft BIP with a proposal to turn Bitcoin into a
limited-supply currency. Dogecoin has already shown how easy such
changes are, so I consider this a worthwhile idea to be explored.

The text can be found here: https://gist.github.com/sipa/9920696

Please comment!

Thanks,

-- 
Pieter



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
* 
  2014-04-01 19:00 [Bitcoin-development] Finite monetary supply for Bitcoin Pieter Wuille

  2014-04-01 20:59   ` Pieter Wuille
  2014-04-04  3:41   ` kjj
  2014-04-01 19:07 ` 
                   ` 
  6 siblings, 2 replies; 27+ messages in thread
From: Matt Whitlock @ 2014-04-01 19:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Pieter Wuille;  bitcoin-development

The creation date in your BIP header has the wrong format. It should be 01-04-2014, per BIP 1.

:-)


On Tuesday, 1 April 2014, at 9:00 pm, Pieter Wuille wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I understand this is a controversial proposal, but bear with me please.
> 
> I believe we cannot accept the current subsidy schedule anymore, so I
> wrote a small draft BIP with a proposal to turn Bitcoin into a
> limited-supply currency. Dogecoin has already shown how easy such
> changes are, so I consider this a worthwhile idea to be explored.
> 
> The text can be found here: https://gist.github.com/sipa/9920696
> 
> Please comment!
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -- 
> Pieter
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> Bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development



^ permalink raw reply	[|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* 
  2014-04-01 19:00 [Bitcoin-development] Finite monetary supply for Bitcoin Pieter Wuille
  2014-04-01 19:04 ` Matt Whitlock

  2014-04-01 19:09 ` 
                   ` 
  6 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread
From: Gregory Maxwell @ 2014-04-01 19:07 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Pieter Wuille;  Bitcoin Dev

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 12:00 PM, Pieter Wuille <pieter.wuille@gmail•com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> I understand this is a controversial proposal, but bear with me please.
> I believe we cannot accept the current subsidy schedule anymore, so I
> wrote a small draft BIP with a proposal to turn Bitcoin into a
> limited-supply currency. Dogecoin has already shown how easy such
> changes are, so I consider this a worthwhile idea to be explored.
>
> The text can be found here: https://gist.github.com/sipa/9920696

A minor nitpick:  It is well known that the Bitcoin core developers
are some of the most active TypeScript coders around,
E.g. http://osrc.dfm.io/sipa  and http://osrc.dfm.io/gavinandresen

But I think this is an important step forward: Seminal alternative
crypto-currencies such as SolidCoin showed us that economic parameters
can be freely changed at any time, for any (or no) reason at all; and
so we should take this opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to
adopting innovative features like non-inflation regardless of their
origins in other crypto-currencies.



^ permalink raw reply	[|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* 
  2014-04-01 19:00 [Bitcoin-development] Finite monetary supply for Bitcoin Pieter Wuille
  2014-04-01 19:04 ` Matt Whitlock
  2014-04-01 19:07 ` Gregory Maxwell

  2014-04-01 19:09 ` 
                   ` 
  6 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread
From: Tamas Blummer @ 2014-04-01 19:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Pieter Wuille;  Bitcoin Dev

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While at that let's allow coin bases to be merged from orphan blocks,
so miner are fairly rewarded even if unlucky.

On 01.04.2014, at 21:00, Pieter Wuille <pieter.wuille@gmail•com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I understand this is a controversial proposal, but bear with me please.
> 
> I believe we cannot accept the current subsidy schedule anymore, so I
> wrote a small draft BIP with a proposal to turn Bitcoin into a
> limited-supply currency. Dogecoin has already shown how easy such
> changes are, so I consider this a worthwhile idea to be explored.
> 
> The text can be found here: https://gist.github.com/sipa/9920696
> 
> Please comment!
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -- 
> Pieter
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> Bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
> 


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^ permalink raw reply	[|nested] 27+ messages in thread
* 
  2014-04-01 19:00 [Bitcoin-development] Finite monetary supply for Bitcoin Pieter Wuille
                   ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2014-04-01 19:09 ` Tamas Blummer

  2014-04-01 19:11 ` 
                   ` 
  6 siblings, 0 replies; 27+ messages in thread
From: Mike Hearn @ 2014-04-01 19:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Pieter Wuille;  Bitcoin Dev

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This proposal will destroy Bitcoin. I would expect nothing less coming from
a Google employee.

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^ permalink raw reply	[|nested] 27+ messages in thread
2014-04-01 19:00 [Bitcoin-development] Finite monetary supply for Bitcoin Pieter Wuille
                   ` (4 preceding siblings ...)
  2014-04-01 19:11 ` Matt Corallo

  2014-04-01 19:16   ` Benjamin Cordes
  2014-04-01 20:00 ` Peter Todd
  
From: Luke-Jr @ 2014-04-01 19:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: bitcoin-development

On Tuesday, April 01, 2014 7:00:07 PM Pieter Wuille wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I understand this is a controversial proposal, but bear with me please.
> 
> I believe we cannot accept the current subsidy schedule anymore, so I
> wrote a small draft BIP with a proposal to turn Bitcoin into a
> limited-supply currency. Dogecoin has already shown how easy such
> changes are, so I consider this a worthwhile idea to be explored.
> 
> The text can be found here: https://gist.github.com/sipa/9920696
> 
> Please comment!

I cleaned it up a bit. By 2214, we should be using tonal numbers after all:

https://gist.github.com/luke-jr/9920788



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-01 19:12 ` Luke-Jr

  2014-04-01 19:19     ` Luke-Jr
  
From: Benjamin Cordes @ 2014-04-01 19:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Luke-Jr;  Bitcoin Dev

luke, you might enjoy the book Topos of Music. It's a complete
mathematical music theory by a student of Grothendieck. He advanced
Euler's theories of harmony based on advanced category theory. I'm
sure there are many applications to Bitcoin.

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 9:12 PM, Luke-Jr <luke@dashjr•org> wrote:
> On Tuesday, April 01, 2014 7:00:07 PM Pieter Wuille wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I understand this is a controversial proposal, but bear with me please.
>>
>> I believe we cannot accept the current subsidy schedule anymore, so I
>> wrote a small draft BIP with a proposal to turn Bitcoin into a
>> limited-supply currency. Dogecoin has already shown how easy such
>> changes are, so I consider this a worthwhile idea to be explored.
>>
>> The text can be found here: https://gist.github.com/sipa/9920696
>>
>> Please comment!
>
> I cleaned it up a bit. By 2214, we should be using tonal numbers after all:
>
> https://gist.github.com/luke-jr/9920788
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> Bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-01 19:16   ` Benjamin Cordes

  
From: Luke-Jr @ 2014-04-01 19:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Benjamin Cordes;  Bitcoin Dev

Please, *music* is obsolete, but inline replies *are not*!

On Tuesday, April 01, 2014 7:16:42 PM Benjamin Cordes wrote:
> luke, you might enjoy the book Topos of Music. It's a complete
> mathematical music theory by a student of Grothendieck. He advanced
> Euler's theories of harmony based on advanced category theory. I'm
> sure there are many applications to Bitcoin.
> 
> On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 9:12 PM, Luke-Jr <luke@dashjr•org> wrote:
> > On Tuesday, April 01, 2014 7:00:07 PM Pieter Wuille wrote:
> >> Hi all,
> >> 
> >> I understand this is a controversial proposal, but bear with me please.
> >> 
> >> I believe we cannot accept the current subsidy schedule anymore, so I
> >> wrote a small draft BIP with a proposal to turn Bitcoin into a
> >> limited-supply currency. Dogecoin has already shown how easy such
> >> changes are, so I consider this a worthwhile idea to be explored.
> >> 
> >> The text can be found here: https://gist.github.com/sipa/9920696
> >> 
> >> Please comment!
> > 
> > I cleaned it up a bit. By 2214, we should be using tonal numbers after
> > all:
> > 
> > https://gist.github.com/luke-jr/9920788
> > 
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ----- _______________________________________________
> > Bitcoin-development mailing list
> > Bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-01 19:00 [Bitcoin-development] Finite monetary supply for Bitcoin Pieter Wuille
                   ` (5 preceding siblings ...)
  2014-04-01 19:12 ` Luke-Jr

  2014-04-01 20:53   ` Pieter Wuille
  
From: Peter Todd @ 2014-04-01 20:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Pieter Wuille;  Bitcoin Dev

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On Tue, Apr 01, 2014 at 09:00:07PM +0200, Pieter Wuille wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I understand this is a controversial proposal, but bear with me please.
> 
> I believe we cannot accept the current subsidy schedule anymore, so I
> wrote a small draft BIP with a proposal to turn Bitcoin into a
> limited-supply currency. Dogecoin has already shown how easy such
> changes are, so I consider this a worthwhile idea to be explored.
> 
> The text can be found here: https://gist.github.com/sipa/9920696

What's interesting about this bug is we could also fix the problem - the
economic shock - by first implementing the OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY opcode
in a soft-fork, followed by a second soft-fork requiring miners to
"pay-forward" a percentage of their coinbase outputs to the future.
(remember that whomever mines a block controls what
recently-made-available anyone-can-spend txouts are included in their
block) We could then pick the distribution rate fairly arbitrarily; I
propose the following linear distribution:

Each gold mine produces 21,000,000 coins over 210,000*64 blocks, or
1.5625 BTC/block evenly distributed. Measured as an absolute against the
monetary the inflation rate will converge towards zero; measured against
the actual economic monetary supply the value will converge towards some
low value of inflation. In the short run we get an immediate reduction
in inflation, which can help our currently sluggish price. Either
outcome should be acceptable to any reasonable goldbug - fortunately our
community is almost entirely made up of such calm and reasonable people.
Meanwhile maintaining a miner reward has significant advantages in terms
of the long-term sustainability of the system - everyone needs PoW
security regardless of whether or not you do transactions, thus we
should all pay into it.

As for your example of Python, I'm sure they'll accept a pull-req
changing the behavior in the language.

-- 
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
0000000000000000f4f5ba334791a4102917e4d3f22f6ad7f2c4f15d97307fe2

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2014-04-01 20:00 ` Peter Todd

  2014-04-01 21:47     ` Gregory Maxwell
  
From: Pieter Wuille @ 2014-04-01 20:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Bitcoin Dev

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 10:00 PM, Peter Todd <pete@petertodd•org> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 01, 2014 at 09:00:07PM +0200, Pieter Wuille wrote:
>> The text can be found here: https://gist.github.com/sipa/9920696
>
> What's interesting about this bug is we could also fix the problem - the
> economic shock - by first implementing the OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY opcode
> in a soft-fork, followed by a second soft-fork requiring miners to
> "pay-forward" a percentage of their coinbase outputs to the future.
> (remember that whomever mines a block controls what
> recently-made-available anyone-can-spend txouts are included in their
> block) We could then pick the distribution rate fairly arbitrarily; I
> propose the following linear distribution:

Interesting idea, but perhaps we can keep that change for a future
hard fork, as Matt suggested? That means it could be implemented much
more concisely too.

Mike, I'm sad to hear you feel that way. I'll move your name in the
document from ACKnowledgements to NAKnowledgements.

As this is a relatively urgent matter - we risk forks within 250 years
otherwise, I'd like to move this forward quickly.

In case there are no further objections (excluding from people who
disagree with me), I'd like to request a BIP number for this. Any
number is fine, I guess, as long as it's finite.

-- 
Pieter



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-01 19:04 ` Matt Whitlock

  2014-04-04  3:41   ` kjj
  
From: Pieter Wuille @ 2014-04-01 20:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Matt Whitlock;  Bitcoin Dev

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 9:04 PM, Matt Whitlock <bip@mattwhitlock•name> wrote:
> The creation date in your BIP header has the wrong format. It should be 01-04-2014, per BIP 1.

Thanks - fixed!

-- 
Pieter



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-01 19:11 ` Matt Corallo

  
From: Jorge Timón @ 2014-04-01 21:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Matt Corallo;  Bitcoin Dev

On 4/1/14, Matt Corallo <bitcoin-list@bluematt•me> wrote:
> Also, should we really do this with a soft fork when we can take this
> opportunity to redesign the whole system with a hard fork? This is out
> chance to switch to a whole new script engine!

+1
The hard fork also forces the whole community and not a few miners to decide.
Well, if it is possible for the community to reach an agreement with
such a short time frame...

> Matt
>
> On April 1, 2014 3:00:07 PM EDT, Pieter Wuille <pieter.wuille@gmail•com>
> wrote:
>>Hi all,
>>
>>I understand this is a controversial proposal, but bear with me please.
>>
>>I believe we cannot accept the current subsidy schedule anymore, so I
>>wrote a small draft BIP with a proposal to turn Bitcoin into a
>>limited-supply currency. Dogecoin has already shown how easy such
>>changes are, so I consider this a worthwhile idea to be explored.
>>
>>The text can be found here: https://gist.github.com/sipa/9920696
>>
>>Please comment!
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>--
>>Pieter
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>_______________________________________________
>>Bitcoin-development mailing list
>>Bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net
>>https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>


-- 
Jorge Timón

http://freico.in/



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-01 20:53   ` Pieter Wuille

  2014-04-01 21:51       ` Daryl Banttari
                         ` (2 more replies)
  
From: Gregory Maxwell @ 2014-04-01 21:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Pieter Wuille;  Bitcoin Dev

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 1:53 PM, Pieter Wuille <pieter.wuille@gmail•com> wrote:
> In case there are no further objections (excluding from people who
> disagree with me), I'd like to request a BIP number for this. Any
> number is fine, I guess, as long as it's finite.

With ten people commenting on this proposal there are quite a few ways
in which you could partition their views. Only one possible integer
partitioning has everyone in the same partition, so consensus seems
unlikely.

But owing to a rather large bribe (or at least not less large than any
other offered by competing parties) I hereby assign BIP 42 for this
proposal.



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-01 20:53   ` Pieter Wuille

  2014-04-01 21:51       ` 
                         ` 
  
From: Gregory Maxwell @ 2014-04-01 21:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Pieter Wuille;  Bitcoin Dev

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 1:53 PM, Pieter Wuille <pieter.wuille@gmail•com> wrote:
> In case there are no further objections (excluding from people who
> disagree with me), I'd like to request a BIP number for this. Any
> number is fine, I guess, as long as it's finite.

With ten people commenting on this proposal there are quite a few ways
in which you could partition their views. Only one possible integer
partitioning has everyone in the same partition, so consensus seems
unlikely.

But owing to a rather large bribe (or at least not less large than any
other offered by competing parties) I hereby assign BIP 42 for this
proposal.



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-01 21:47     ` Gregory Maxwell
  2014-04-01 21:51       ` Daryl Banttari

  2014-04-01 22:37       ` Pieter Wuille
  
From: Matt Corallo @ 2014-04-01 21:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Gregory Maxwell, Pieter Wuille;  Bitcoin Dev

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I move to reclaim bip 42 as reserved for a bip containing either a reference to musical dolphins or towels in the name.

Matt

On April 1, 2014 5:47:34 PM EDT, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail•com> wrote:
>On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 1:53 PM, Pieter Wuille <pieter.wuille@gmail•com>
>wrote:
>> In case there are no further objections (excluding from people who
>> disagree with me), I'd like to request a BIP number for this. Any
>> number is fine, I guess, as long as it's finite.
>
>With ten people commenting on this proposal there are quite a few ways
>in which you could partition their views. Only one possible integer
>partitioning has everyone in the same partition, so consensus seems
>unlikely.
>
>But owing to a rather large bribe (or at least not less large than any
>other offered by competing parties) I hereby assign BIP 42 for this
>proposal.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>_______________________________________________
>Bitcoin-development mailing list
>Bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net
>https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

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 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-01 21:51       ` Daryl Banttari

  
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2014-04-01 22:03 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Daryl Banttari;  Bitcoin Dev

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 5:51 PM, Daryl Banttari <dbanttari@gmail•com> wrote:
> What about BIP 420?  Everyone knows if you add zero it's still the same
> number.

Similarly, everyone knows if you multiply both sides by zero, the
result is always a true statement.

-- 
Jeff Garzik
Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
BitPay, Inc.      https://bitpay.com/



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-01 21:47     ` Gregory Maxwell
  2014-04-01 21:51       ` Daryl Banttari
  2014-04-01 21:51       ` Matt Corallo

  
From: Pieter Wuille @ 2014-04-01 22:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Gregory Maxwell;  Bitcoin Dev

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 11:47 PM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail•com> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 1:53 PM, Pieter Wuille <pieter.wuille@gmail•com> wrote:
> But owing to a rather large bribe (or at least not less large than any
> other offered by competing parties) I hereby assign BIP 42 for this
> proposal.

Submitted as BIP 42
(https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0042.mediawiki)
through PR #42 (https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/42).

Thanks!



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-01 19:04 ` Matt Whitlock
  2014-04-01 20:59   ` Pieter Wuille

  2014-04-04  7:01     ` Wladimir
  2014-04-05 17:29     ` Gregory Maxwell
  
From: kjj @ 2014-04-04  3:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Bitcoin-development

Matt Whitlock wrote:
> The creation date in your BIP header has the wrong format. It should be 01-04-2014, per BIP 1.
>
At first, I thought this was a second April Fool's joke, but then I 
looked and saw that all of the BIPs really do use this format.  As far 
as I can tell, we are using this insane format because RFC 822 predates 
ISO 8601 by half a decade.

Since we don't have half a gajillion mail servers to patch, we could, if 
we desired, adopt a sensible date format here.  The cost to the 
community would be minimal, with probably not more than a half dozen 
people needing to update scripts.  It could even be as simple as one guy 
running sed s/parseabomination/parsedate/g



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-04  3:41   ` kjj

  2014-04-04 13:19       ` Jeff Garzik
  2014-04-05 17:29     ` Gregory Maxwell
  
From: Wladimir @ 2014-04-04  7:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: kjj;  Bitcoin Dev

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On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 5:41 AM, kjj <bitcoin-devel@jerviss•org> wrote:

> Matt Whitlock wrote:
> > The creation date in your BIP header has the wrong format. It should be
> 01-04-2014, per BIP 1.
> >
> At first, I thought this was a second April Fool's joke, but then I
> looked and saw that all of the BIPs really do use this format.  As far
> as I can tell, we are using this insane format because RFC 822 predates
> ISO 8601 by half a decade.
>
> Since we don't have half a gajillion mail servers to patch, we could, if
> we desired, adopt a sensible date format here.  The cost to the
> community would be minimal, with probably not more than a half dozen
> people needing to update scripts.  It could even be as simple as one guy
> running sed s/parseabomination/parsedate/g
>

BIPs were based on Python PIPs, PIPs use this same ordering but spell out
the month like '1-Oct-2000'. This is slightly more readable than our format.

http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0453/

But to make it more confusing they have two different date conventions
within the header (one for the modified date, and one for the created date).

Personally I'd prefer to standardize on ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) dates as well.

Feel free to submit a pull against bips/bips that changes around the dates.

Wladimir

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 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-04  7:01     ` Wladimir

  2014-04-05 10:21         ` Jorge Timón
  
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2014-04-04 13:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Wladimir;  Bitcoin Dev

On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 3:01 AM, Wladimir <laanwj@gmail•com> wrote:
> Personally I'd prefer to standardize on ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) dates as well.

+1 for all-numeric, easily computer parse-able without a lookup table,
and naturally sorts correctly in a lexicographic sort.

English (or any language) should never be in a date format, on a computer.

-- 
Jeff Garzik
Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
BitPay, Inc.      https://bitpay.com/



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-04 13:19       ` Jeff Garzik

  2014-04-05 10:40           ` Matt Whitlock
  
From: Jorge Timón @ 2014-04-05 10:21 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jeff Garzik;  Bitcoin Dev

I like both DD-MM-YYYY and YYYY-MM-DD. I just dislike MM-DD-YYYY and YYYY-DD-MM.

On 4/4/14, Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@bitpay•com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 3:01 AM, Wladimir <laanwj@gmail•com> wrote:
>> Personally I'd prefer to standardize on ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) dates as
>> well.
>
> +1 for all-numeric, easily computer parse-able without a lookup table,
> and naturally sorts correctly in a lexicographic sort.
>
> English (or any language) should never be in a date format, on a computer.
>
> --
> Jeff Garzik
> Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist
> BitPay, Inc.      https://bitpay.com/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> Bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>


-- 
Jorge Timón

http://freico.in/



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-05 10:21         ` Jorge Timón

  2014-04-05 11:28             ` Jorge Timón
  2014-04-05 11:28             ` Wladimir
  
From: Matt Whitlock @ 2014-04-05 10:40 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jorge Timón;  bitcoin-development

On Saturday, 5 April 2014, at 12:21 pm, Jorge Timón wrote:
> I like both DD-MM-YYYY and YYYY-MM-DD. I just dislike MM-DD-YYYY and YYYY-DD-MM.

Your preferences reflect a cultural bias. The only entirely numeric date format that is unambiguous across all cultures is YYYY-MM-DD. (No culture uses YYYY-DD-MM, or at least the ISO seems to think so.)



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-05 10:40           ` Matt Whitlock

  2014-04-05 11:28             ` Wladimir
  
From: Jorge Timón @ 2014-04-05 11:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Matt Whitlock;  bitcoin-development

On 4/5/14, Matt Whitlock <bip@mattwhitlock•name> wrote:
> On Saturday, 5 April 2014, at 12:21 pm, Jorge Timón wrote:
>> I like both DD-MM-YYYY and YYYY-MM-DD. I just dislike MM-DD-YYYY and
>> YYYY-DD-MM.
>
> Your preferences reflect a cultural bias. The only entirely numeric date
> format that is unambiguous across all cultures is YYYY-MM-DD. (No culture
> uses YYYY-DD-MM, or at least the ISO seems to think so.)

Probably my acceptance of DD-MM-YYYY is caused by cultural bias.
The ISO YYYY-MM-DD seems what you normally do with indo-arabic
numerals: put the more weighted numbers on the left, so I guess it's
the most universal (in addition to being standard).

-- 
Jorge Timón

http://freico.in/



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-05 10:40           ` Matt Whitlock
  2014-04-05 11:28             ` Jorge Timón

  2014-04-05 15:54               ` Daryl Tucker
  
From: Wladimir @ 2014-04-05 11:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Matt Whitlock;  Bitcoin Dev

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On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 12:40 PM, Matt Whitlock <bip@mattwhitlock•name>wrote:

> On Saturday, 5 April 2014, at 12:21 pm, Jorge Timón wrote:
> > I like both DD-MM-YYYY and YYYY-MM-DD. I just dislike MM-DD-YYYY and
> YYYY-DD-MM.
>
> Your preferences reflect a cultural bias. The only entirely numeric date
> format that is unambiguous across all cultures is YYYY-MM-DD. (No culture
> uses YYYY-DD-MM, or at least the ISO seems to think so.)
>

Let's not waste any time shed-painting this. I'd like to finish this
discussion at once:

https://xkcd.com/1179/

Wladimir

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 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-05 11:28             ` Wladimir

  
From: Daryl Tucker @ 2014-04-05 15:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
  Cc: Bitcoin Dev


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YYYY-MM-DD sorts more naturally.


On 04/05/2014 06:28 AM, Wladimir wrote:
>
> On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 12:40 PM, Matt Whitlock <bip@mattwhitlock•name
> <mailto:bip@mattwhitlock•name>> wrote:
>
>     On Saturday, 5 April 2014, at 12:21 pm, Jorge Timón wrote:
>     > I like both DD-MM-YYYY and YYYY-MM-DD. I just dislike MM-DD-YYYY
>     and YYYY-DD-MM.
>
>     Your preferences reflect a cultural bias. The only entirely
>     numeric date format that is unambiguous across all cultures is
>     YYYY-MM-DD. (No culture uses YYYY-DD-MM, or at least the ISO seems
>     to think so.)
>
>
> Let's not waste any time shed-painting this. I'd like to finish this
> discussion at once:
>
> https://xkcd.com/1179/
>
> Wladimir
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> Bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development

-- 
Daryl Tucker
daryl@daryltucker•com


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 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2014-04-04  3:41   ` kjj
  2014-04-04  7:01     ` Wladimir

  
From: Gregory Maxwell @ 2014-04-05 17:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: kjj;  Bitcoin Development

On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 8:41 PM, kjj <bitcoin-devel@jerviss•org> wrote:
> At first, I thought this was a second April Fool's joke, but then I
> looked and saw that all of the BIPs really do use this format.  As far
> as I can tell, we are using this insane format because RFC 822 predates
> ISO 8601 by half a decade.

In my opinion you can have whatever style you want on the BIPs, so
long as you pledge to slay all who come and complain about the new
style.



 permalink raw reply	[|nested]