Proposal: Use B-star name for The Merge (at least for CL)

[hwwhww]

Result update: It will be Bellatrix ✨

Breakout Room Announcement

Let's make it finalized in the breakout room call

• Meeting Date/Time: Monday 2021/12/20 at 14:30 GMT
• Meeting Duration: no more than 1 hour
• Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81803836899?pwd=N0srSDljVUlDYXRGVkRtNWoyUFRyZz09
• All "B-" star name candidates: https://notes.ethereum.org/@hww/stars-of-B
• Agenda:
  • talk about the candidates
  • vote via zoom polling or emojis

Anyone who wants to champion your favorite candidate, welcome to join the call!

---

Background

This is a proposal of continuing using star name themes in CL protocol upgrades (HFs). 💫

It was previously discussed in EthMagicians thread, previous implementers calls, and Eth R&D discord. But we haven't made a decision yet.

I think the rough consensus is:

1. Name CL upgrades with some star names.
2. Post-merges, either we keep naming EL upgrades with city names OR changing to star names.
   • The former would be more flexible. If we have a CL+EL release, Capella-Cancun sounds not bad.
   • The latter is simpler if the future CL/EL upgrades are also bound together.

Anyways, it’s time to choose a B-star name for CL!

The benefits are:

• There are so many cases that devs use the terminology “merge” but not about The Merge in code.
  • Or on the other hand, it was funny to see a The Merge PR with a [DO NOT MERGE] label.
• For git blame hygiene, the earlier we decide it, the sooner we can move/rename the directories and files.

Action proposal

• Nominate the name candidates in the thread until Dec 13th
  • Hint: It's good to add some description of why this star name is cool!
• Choose the top 4 popular names
  • To GitHub users: please use positive emojis (👍) to signal your preferences!
• Finalize the name [Dec 20th]
  • Option 1: Have another POAP.vote
    • The previous vote elected Altair
    • Vote period: TBD
  • Option 2: Make decision in implementers call on Dec 16th
  • Option 3: Make a decision in the Breakout room meeting

Let's discuss the proposal and timeline in the call today (#429)

Good name properties

IMO the good code name has to be:

• Alphabetical order, the second HF should start with B
• Not too long for typing
• Not too short to cause confusion
• Uniqueness
• Neutral, not negative
• Bonus: a star that is visible with naked eyes 👀

[hwwhww]

edited: add "Option 2: Make decision in implementers call on Dec 16th"

[mkalinin]

The former would be more flexible. If we have a CL+EL release, Capella-Cancun sounds not bad.

I am in favour of this option. We may see pure CL and pure EL upgrades in the future, having different naming notation for different types of upgrades allows for clear distinguishing between them. And Capella-Cancun for two-layer upgrades sounds good as well.

[unixpi]

Bellatrix
Latin for 'female warrior'; 25th-brightest star in the night sky.

May also work with an optimistic timeline :)

To the Inuit, the appearance of Betelgeuse and Bellatrix high in the southern sky after sunset marked the beginning of spring and lengthening days in late February and early March.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellatrix

[gary-rowe]

Botein
Known as "little belly" within the constellation of Aries (so has a link to the A-range of stars). It has the advantage of being a short name to type, fairly clear pronunciation (Boh-teen) due to similar look to protein and does not appear to have an obvious non-English use.

Previously known as Delta Arietis but now officially designated Botein by the WGSN. It is just about visible to the naked eye (near the Pleiades) if there is no light pollution. The Wikipedia page linked shows a red circle overlay which I have captured below:

[protolambda]

Regarding Merge hardfork naming, note that there are 3 distinct events we can name:

A: the EL upgrade that locks in what the terminal-total-difficulty will be. Not an immediate hardfork, but still a code update that deserves a name.

• Stick with a city name?

B: the CL upgrade that changes the beacon-state format and starts the requests to EL to await the terminal-total-difficulty and the first execution payload to embed in a beacon block. (i.e. what is known as MERGE_EPOCH in testnets currently)

• Star name starting with B.

C: the time when the terminal-total-difficulty is reached, and the first execution payload will be embedded in the beacon chain.

• Can we call this Serenity?

[timbeiko]

@protolambda some thoughts:

Re: A: given this change is a "no op" from a user PoV, maybe we can stick with two-word names like we've done for irregular + difficulty bomb upgrades in the past. Perhaps we can find something based on the B-star for (B). Arcadia Planitia is the name of a region on Mars with "glaciers" :-)

For (C), I can channel my inner Danny Ryan and say that "serenity is about scalability and pos and The Merge is only half those things". (C) really is The Merge, imo. I think we should keep using this as there's already some community awareness around it.

[Logic-Beach]

I am here to suggest "Bellatrix" as well!
Bellatrix is a well-known star in the Orion constellation, the name is memorable and easy to spell, plus you can easily point it out all winter long!

[ecmendenhall]

Beta Lyrae is a close binary star: not one, but two stars in close enough orbit that their Roche Lobes have overlapped. One of the stars is large, faint, and slowly losing mass to the other, while the second is small, hot, and gaining mass over time. The denser star is surrounded by a thick accretion disk that shoots out jets from this ongoing mass transfer. (It probably looks pretty cool. Here's an artist's rendering).

The larger, now-shrinking star probably evolved first, and was originally the more massive of the two. Once its fuel was depleted and its time had come, it grew into a giant, merged with the gravitational pull of its partner, and started slowly transferring its mass.

Maybe this is all too tortured a metaphor for The Merge, but there's a story here about two systems in close orbit evolving together into one. (Check with a real astronomer, though. I'm just a guy who took "Intro to Astronomy" ten years ago and read a bunch of stuff on Wikipedia!).

[yorickdowne]

Betelgeuse in the Orion constellation is one of the largest stars visible to the naked eye. It is also inherently meme-able in English, as it's pronounced similar to Beetlejuice.

[protolambda]

@ecmendenhall Although Beta Lyrae is a nice name, there is already a DeFi project named after it: https://twitter.com/lyrafinance Also, "beta" results in a naming conflict with release versioning.

[abcoathup]

Atlas

We should make the most of the letter A before jumping to B and look at potential star names

For your consideration: Atlas

In Greek mythology, Atlas is a Titan condemned to hold up the heavens or sky for eternity after the Titanomachy.

[Cipioo]

Bubup in the Mensa constellation. It means “child” in Boon Wurrung (an Aboriginal language). It also has a planet with a similar orbital period as earth (363 days). It may be faintly visible to the naked eye, but is clearly visible with binoculars.

[hwwhww]

@abcoathup

We already have Altair for the Altair beacon chain upgrade. 🙂

[jshufro]

Brachium

The latin root is roughly 'forearm'.

It's the A star of a binary system, which something something duality of the chains something.
It's in Libra, the constellation of weighted scales, which also something something duality.

[abcoathup]

We already have Altair for the Altair beacon chain upgrade. 🙂

Only using one star per alphabetical letter means we will run out sooner (thinking Covid strains and greek letters). Hence suggestion to reuse A with Atlas.

[hwwhww]

@abcoathup

Only using one star per alphabetical letter means we will run out sooner

I suppose we can get back to A again after Z. 😄
IMHO It could more valuable to have distinct code names for the close HFs.

[poojaranjan]

Recording - https://youtu.be/90x45qGC-Zs