Re: [Libbt-devel] Re: Features request

[Peter S. <stu...@cd...>]

On Wed, May 25, 2005 at 02:12:42PM +0200, Alien wrote:
> > But I don't think libbt should go about creating lots of data
> > bases on it's own, I instead suggest that libbt hands the
> > information up to the calling application, which can then save it
> > any way it likes to.
> 
> the status of everything is available to the calling application,
> it can deduce stuff from itself, i don't think piecemanagement is a
> good idea, from the progress, it can see if some files are
> completely done, so...

Well, that depends on the design goal of libbt, I guess.

Either simple to use for applications that want to add BT support.
Or feature-complete and means for micro management.

Or perhaps we can have both? I think curl is a good example of both,
although I do admit I've only used it a few times.


> > Also, on initializing a torrent with libbt, an optional map of
> > good pieces could be sent by the application, and libbt would
> > then assume marked pieces are actually correct.
> 
> i don't really believe in this... applications shouldn't have
> anything to do,

Unless it's sole purpose is to do BT and do it extremely well.


> and we cannot assume pieces, uploads could go wrong and stuff.

Yes, but then peers will hate you and stop talking to you, which
makes the problem a non-issue. This should of course be a user
decision with a sensible default. (Ie. no correct pieces.)


> at start, the reading of the file isn't really that slow, and won't
> interfere with down/uploading or system performance anyway...

It sure interferes with the performance of my system, but otoh I'm on
a P3 laptop with a 5k4 RPM disk. :)


> I'd advise against these things...

They all need good default values and settings, but ultimately I
don't think libbt should devise a method to save state between
invocations. The calling application will probably already have some
way to save state, I'm guessing different ones for each application,
and I think it makes more sense to store libbt state at the same
place, since it's certainly only relevant information within the
scope of the application.


//Peter