In preparation for onboarding new core lighting developers are preparing a series of videos. So I've been asking ChatGPT about CLN developer features, particularly with comparison with other projects people might be familiar with.
Of course, I compare myself with Linux, but it's interesting to see comparisons against other projects:
**Type-safety**:
OpenBSD High
Bitcoin Core High
Core Lightning Very high for C
Nginx Low
curl Moderate
MySQL Moderate
SQLite Moderate
CLN sits near the top among major C codebases for safety discipline.
**PR Submission**
Core Lightning’s PR flow is unusually strict, slow-moving, and review-heavy compared to most open-source C projects — closer to Bitcoin Core or OpenBSD than to typical GitHub projects.
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Compared to “average OSS”
Most projects:
Feature-oriented PRs
Informal review
Few required reviewers
Patch squashing common
Tests sometimes optional
Architectural discussion often post-merge
CLN:
Patch-first culture
Pre-merge architectural scrutiny
Extremely high reviewer expectations
Tests are mandatory
Clean, narrative commit history matters
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Replies (5)
Core Lightning is my favorite software ever. Learning a lot from it.
big fan of #openbsd and #bitcoin — seems like #cln is awesome. will these videos be public? would love to have a look
First ones (very general) up at https://rusty.ozlabs.org
They're kinda boring, given it's just me and an editor window, but they lay the groundwork.
thanks for letting me know — boring is great
also added your blog to my feed reader, won't miss the upcoming ones