Daniel Wigton on Nostr: It is mostly because I am a bad software architect. I am a decent enough coder, but ...

It is mostly because I am a bad software architect. I am a decent enough coder, but poor organizational skills.

The second reason, though, is that it is a really hard problem. I could code up _something_ in a week, but it wouldn't be the right thing. We have a thousand examples of protocols that do something, but they all suck once they get users. Mine probably will too, but there exists some platonic ideal protocol that respects the users and isn't susceptible to spam. It takes careful thought.

Every new communication method ever invented has fallen prey to spam, but they have features in common that make it inevitable.

Part of why it is taking me so long is that I have had to start over many times. My first concept 10 years ago was nearly identical to nostr just more complicated and unweildy. So I have been slowly trying to figure out what is needed and what isn't needed to try to find the simplest solution that does the job.

One thing about nostr is that it is "simple". But you really need to look at the whole stack to get an absolute simplicity, not just easy given preexisting tools. For instance nostr uses json. Nice! Well understood, easy to find fast libraries for it, convient, but you wouldn't want to program your own parser from scratch. It isn't simple in the absolute.

Same with web sockets. Great if you already have them but how many developers really understand the whole stack it takes to set up a web socket. What if you want to communicate by carrier pidgin instead?

I am not saying those things are bad, and reinventing the wheel isn't a virtue but when you are laying a foundation you want things that do what you want and don't have any features you don't want. Its a hard problem.