question: dapple vs. dapp?

[warren-bank]

Hi. This is kind of a high-level question.. but I was just wondering whether dapple will eventually be deprecated and replaced by dapp?

There seems to be a lot of functional overlap between the two projects, and I'm not really sure how they fit together. I suppose I'm mainly asking for some clarity in that regard.

I'm very new to Ethereum. I've read as much documentation as I can find. Now I'm trying to get a better grip on the tools and ecosystem.

Given that my level of experience and understanding is less than those reading this.. I'm going to quickly compare and contrast features of the two projects, and I ask that I please be corrected where I'm mistaken..

They both do package management and have a testing framework:

• package management in dapple is done via a name-registry contract in Ethereum (name and version -> multihash) combined with IPFS (multihash represents the Merkle root of content-addressable data)
• package management in dapp is currently done via git submodules, though the intention is to migrate to EthPM (when ready).. which will also use IPFS for data storage
• the testing framework in dapp is based on dapple-quicktest and should give a huge performance boost, in addition to providing much more detailed information about the origin of nested throws
• the testing framework in dapple can be run against either a new blockchain, or a fork of any existing blockchain.. which is a very powerful feature to test integration with previously deployed contracts

On the other hand:

• dapple has DappleScript, which can:
  • run migrations
  • run shell scripts and synchronously read the output into a variable
  • write data to the Dappfile
  • other magic..

Are they supposed to be used together in combination, or is one (intended to become) a more powerful superset of the other?

Sorry for being a n00b. Thanks for reading :)

[warren-bank]

some additional observations, thoughts, ramblings..

in terms of migration scripts:

• dapp uses seth as a command-line tool to make JSON RPC calls
• Migration scripts can (presumably) be written directly in bash, making use of seth

in terms of the ability to fork blockchains:

• It would actually be really nice if this functionality could be split into a standalone JSON RPC server, which could then be used by any abstraction layer (ex: seth, web3.js, etc..)
• When tests don't require any integration with pre-existing contracts, no forking is needed.. and testrpc can be used
• When tests do require a fork of a public blockchain, this server is a drop-in replacement
• I assume that forking of an existing blockchain is a fairly lightweight operation, since each block header references a snapshot of the complete state of the blockchain (at the time it was mined). As such, it would seem all that's needed to perform a fork would be:
  • a network connection to a trusted peer running a full client
  • to download this one particular block header
  • to download all data stored in Merkle trees (ie: state, transaction, receipts) having roots contained in this block header, or to proxy requests for (small chunks of) this data to the full peer using light-client APIs

[nmushegian]

@warren-bank I really have to congratulate you on being able to wade through this mess with just the docs we have out there.

dapp has effectively deprecated dapple. We could make it clearer that all new users should use dapp.

dapple has DappleScript, which can ...

DappleScript was multiple r&d efforts in one project which resulted in something that looks like frankenstein. Do not recommend.

Migration scripts can (presumably) be written directly in bash, making use of seth

Yep. In practice we are not even close to needing structured/typed deploy languages.

re: forking

Dapple chain forking was experimental and created before the client devs picked it up as a feature request

re: packages

Package management and namespacing both grew/merged into collaborative projects, now ens.domains and ethpm.org

[warren-bank]

are you kidding?.. that's like Superman giving a pat on the back to the bumbling dummy he just saved :)

You guys are amazing! Thanks for all your hard work.. and for helping me to better understand the current state (and near-term direction) of these projects.

I'll be installing dapp right now... :)