Author: Matt Corallo 2011-08-10 10:14:49
Published on: 2011-08-10T10:14:49+00:00
In an email thread, John Smith proposed the idea of separating the current mainline client into three executables: bitcoind (bitcoin daemon), bitcoin(-qt) (bitcoin GUI executable), and bitcoincl (bitcoin RPC command line). By default, all three would be built. In non-GUI mode, only bitcoind and bitcoincl would be built. The advantages of this proposal include clearer user understanding of one command, one function, simplified main functions, and separation of the UI and daemon as RPC calls. However, some members of the email thread disagreed with the proposal due to potential confusion for users in opening multiple executables. Additionally, they argued that the split would add unnecessary complexity for little clear advantage. Matt agreed with the idea of splitting the source into separate library-ish components, but did not like the idea of splitting into more executables. Lastly, Matt suggested that if the goal was to distribute bitcoin-qt being built off of bitcoind, a pull-request should be made.
Updated on: 2023-05-18T22:06:55.444777+00:00