Product Design

[ericomeehan]

Goals

We are building the base functionality to read, create, share, and collect blocks within a peer-to-peer network. With this application, it will be easy to install client and server based applications that extend its functionality, allowing you to use the blockchain in any way you like.

Single or Multiple Applications?

On a given node, how dependent is either the client or server section on the other? If the client utilizes the server to query local storage, then their usage is heavily integrated and every instance of the application will require both client and server functionality; however, these two functionalities could also be designed as stand-alone applications, allowing users to install blockchain-client or blockchain-server depending on their needs. Either way, we may want to allow users to configure the allocation of resources to client and server functionalities.

Discussion

How should we implement the raw materials present in the library into a final product? Should we create separate or integrated client and server applications?

[ericomeehan]

Currently, my view is that we have the two functionalities integrated completely. Everyone would download the same application regardless of use case and would use a configuration file to control the allocation of resources to client v. server operations.

The reasoning behind this is that I view the client functionality as using the server functionality to perform its tasks. For example, if a client wanted to query a specific block, they would do so by sending a request to their loopback address - their own server. The server, then, would search the local storage and query the network.

This allows for a relatively simple transition between client heavy and server heavy applications. A client could simply leave their network ports closed, leaving all server resources available for client applications. A pure server could also simply not make use of client applications.

I feel this is a pretty clean solution but I am open to other opinions!