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logos-co / nomos-specs

Nomos related specification and documentation
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Embed Robustness into `mixnet.py` #61

Closed youngjoon-lee closed 8 months ago

youngjoon-lee commented 8 months ago

We have discussed lots of time about the robustness layer, regarding its role and its name: https://github.com/logos-co/nomos-specs/pull/57#discussion_r1472490489. Now, I think it is time for us to make a conclusion about this.

Through many discussions, I end up with thinking that we don't need to define the Robustness class in this executable spec explicitly.

As I understand, the robustness layer has been suggested to clearly separate config reconstruction logic from the core mixnet logic. I totally agree with it. However, having an explicit Robustness component has made confusions. Some wondered whether it performs or will perform a role for components other than mixnet, and if so, what that role is. Also, if it's only for mixnet (at least in v1), others wondered why we shouldn't define the config reconstruction logic within the area of mixnet.

I also agree with these confusions. This topic might be an implementation detail that doesn't need to be discussed in the spec level. So, in this PR, I'm suggesting a simpler structure. Config reconstruction is done in mixnet.py that is the top-most class of mixnet and has APIs for interactions with upper components. The actual mix/networking logic is defined in mixclient.py and mixnode.py. I believe this structure is quite clear and will not cause further confusions.

Please provide your opinion here. I'd recommend you to focus on the structure for now. There are some code that needs to be refactored, but I tried to minimize diffs to show the structure clearly. I'm gonna refine code after we made a conclusion.

alvatar commented 8 months ago

I see that the code uses the naming "config", while we are discussing the concept of robustness. As mentioned in Notion, I think robustness is not a very accurate naming for what this does, so I think the code is in better place now.