Re:Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange
by danbruc on Friday February 28, 2014 @05:34PM
(#7322004)
The security of your funds is our #1 priority. Our team goes above and beyond all banking security best practices to create the world's most secure Bitcoin trading platform.
And then they build their system using CoffeeScript, a dynamically typed language? They are kidding me?
EDIT: Another comment implies they rebuild the engine using Scala.
Excuse my ignorance, but what about a dynamically-typed language makes an application inherently less secure?
Assuming your design is correct and secure - and that is already really hard to do - you still have to ensure that you implementation matches your design, i.e. contains no defects, and this is harder in a dynamically typed language, because there are classes of defects that the compiler of a statically typed language will catch while they go unnoticed using a dynamically typed language. So dynamically typed languages are not less correct or secure on their own, they just do not prevent you from writing incorrect or insecure code in the same way statically typed languages do.
One example I once read about are control systems for rockets and missiles - they use different data types for x, y and z coordinates. They are all just numbers but you really want to make sure that you do not accidentally swap two variables and the missile turns left while it should ascend. And you just can not enforce such constraints in dynamically typed languages.
Re:Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange
by recursive on Friday February 28, 2014 @08:00PM
(#7322594)
It's harder to reason about the behavior of a program running in an environment that allows monkey patching and eval().
You can just have a style guide that disallows those constructs.
Re:Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange
by meddlepal on Saturday March 01, 2014 @12:55AM
(#7323305)
Which unlike a compiler has a higher chance of being improperly applied or ignored.
Re:Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange
by cedricdahl on Saturday March 01, 2014 @03:44AM
(#7323664)
Hi danbruc, yes, that's correct, we've rebuilt the engine using Scala.
The claim about banking best practices is an obvious lie on its face.
Have they been audited?
Re:Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange
by throwaway5857 on Friday February 28, 2014 @04:48PM
(#7321733)
that hasn't been updated in NINE MONTHS
this was a scam
they got a bunch of people to write the software for them and then took it closed source
shame on them
They also took a lot of donations in BTC which they never returned after pivoting their project to a private closed source solution. Shame on them for sure.
Re:Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange
by Raphael on Friday February 28, 2014 @07:28PM
(#7322469)
Starting off on the wrong foot.
Re:Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange
by psykovsky on Saturday March 01, 2014 @01:24AM
(#7323368)
With all the money they already have on the bank I suspect they don't agree with you.
Re:Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange
by marcbarbosa on Friday February 28, 2014 @05:32PM
(#7321994)
I don't think it's a scam. According to kevin-buttercoin comment a month ago, they are working on Scala based version, and it will be opensourced.
Re:Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange
by 1qaz2wsx3edc on Friday February 28, 2014 @06:27PM
(#7322245)
I've actually talked with Kevin before, they do seem to care about open-source & security & scalability. I mean, from what we talked about, I got the sense they do. But for them, I think things are moving fast, and it's hard to please everyone, all the time, especially when you need to prioritize the business. It seems they care about open-source as a reassurance to security. And I think they do want to give back to the community.
Re:Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange
by 1qaz2wsx3edc on Friday February 28, 2014 @04:54PM
(#7321779)
I understand your point of view, but isn't that sort of the spirit of open source software? To take it and build something with it. I mean, they didn't close the repo, it's still up there, they just made the decision to not contribute back as they decided to build a business around it. Others can too.
Open source, yes. Free software, no.
Sadly this was open source, not free.
Re:Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange
by wcoenen on Friday February 28, 2014 @07:11PM
(#7322411)
Free software typically doesn't force you to share changes either, as long as you don't distribute the binaries. Patching GPL code and using it in a web application without ever releasing the source is perfectly fine.
The Affero GPL was designed to force the release of source even in that case. That's the only license I know which has that property though.
Free software != GPL. One could argue that the Affero GPL represents a continuation of the ideals which gave birth to the GPL, now that more and more applications have moved to being network services (something less common in 80's).
Which is the reason for the AGPL license. Those people contributed their code under the MIT license. This is absolutely allowed.
https://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin