Hi list, On 8/31/21 5:01 AM, Anthony Towns wrote: >> "Do we really want users to solve an NP-hard problem when >> they wish to find a cheap way of paying each other on the Lightning >> Network?" > FWIW, my answer to this is "sure, if that's the way it turns out". > > Another program which solves an NP-hard problem every time it runs is > "apt-get install". > [I]f it fails too often, > you re-analyse what's going on manually and add a new heuristic to cope > with it. I've been following the conversation with interest and I acknowledge this is a thorny issue.
I am a bit worried with a path which relies on constantly finding new heuristics to approximate a solution to an NP-hard problem: * It allows too much room for nonconstructive disagreement between LN developers in the future. - In a worst case scenario, all implementations end up using different, incompatible heuristics because each group of developers thinks that they have the best one, leading to a suboptimal performance for everyone. Heuristics are less of an exact science after all. * It makes the job of node operators less predictable, since it would depend more on the decisions of said developers with no guarantee of convergence to a single solution. - Node operators may perceive this as loss of decentralization to the developers. Such an approach is much more suitable to debian, since they have full control and a complete view over their "network" of packages, as opposed to LN, which is decentralized, nodes come and go at will and they can be private (even from developers!). Best, Orfeas The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. Is e buidheann carthannais a th’ ann an Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann, clàraichte an Alba, àireamh clàraidh SC005336. _______________________________________________ Lightning-dev mailing list Lightning-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/lightning-dev
