Consider switching to bitcoin based version

[RCasatta]

For example when bitcoin core 24.0 come out, add support for it and crate version could become 24.0-x.y

[casey]

This seems like a good idea! The current setup is somewhat tricky to use, since you have to remember to specify a feature. So just specifying one version for the crate and getting the bitcoind version you want would be easier.

[RCasatta]

What you describe is not exactly what I had in mind. Features will stay and there will be no default feature enabled because by default I want to support setups where bitcoind executable is already in PATH or where BITCOIND_EXE env var is specified.

What I was considering with this issue is that bitcoind crate version 24.0-x.y is the first version supporting the feature 24_0

[casey]

Ah, gotcha, makes sense. Would it make sense to split bitcoind into two crates, one that downloads bitcoind, and one that runs it? They seem like two distinct pieces of functionality. Then, the version of bitcoind that download the crates could use the same versioning scheme as bitcoind itself.

[RCasatta]

Then, the version of bitcoind that download the crates could use the same versioning scheme as bitcoind itself.

But do you imagine crate bitcoind_download version 23.0 can only download that version?
It's useful to test against the older versions

[casey]

But do you imagine crate bitcoind_download version 23.0 can only download that version?
It's useful to test against the older versions

You could use a previous version of bitcoin_download to test older versions. And you could also use multiple versions to test different versions at the same time. I don't think that's possible with features.

[casey]

Or, wait, I think it is, you would just have two dependencies with different names and with different features turned on.