[Seeks-users] DHT code evolution (repost)

[Loic D. <lo...@da...>]

Hi,

I completed a rewrite of the stabilization of the successor list of the
seeks DHT today, with the associated tests. It is available at
http://seeks.dachary.org/seeks.git

In my opinion the changes that shoud be done to estabish a sound base
for the DHT are the following:

* replacing the stabilization loop with libevent
* reducing to a single thread instead of two (with libevent)
* use UDT instead of UDP
* cache DNS resolution
* use a pool of remote nodes modeling their accessibity accross virtual
nodes
* use Location instead of DHTKey + NetAddress
* replace the protobuf wrappers with a hierarchy of derived classes

Each of them taken individually are relatively easy to agree on. All
together they look like more work than necessary to get started. It
would certainly be possible to have a working DHT without doing this
ground work. But I believe it would seriously jeopardize our ability to
build on safe grounds.

In the past weeks I wrote tests and extensively explored the existing
code. I don't think I missed an area that would contradict the
diagnostic above. I adapted and refactored locally to the best of my
abilities. But I believe it is time, using our combined experiences, to
restructure the code to match all of the above constraints at once.

One could argue that it would be a waste of time to carefull restructure
and that it is more important to get something working quickly. But if
that was the case, chosing a ready made solution such as maidsafe would
be a lot quicker. The main reason to implement a DHT is to make it an
integral part of seeks instead of a tool box imported from a third party.

Cheers