On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 10:14 AM, Matt Corallo <bitcoin-list@bluematt.me> wrote:

I would argue its less clear for the user. Instead of opening either
bitcoind or bitcoin to get RPC or GUI, now you have to open bitcoin and
bitcoind or bitcoincl and bitcoind. Now, obviously bitcoin and
bitcoincl can open bitcoind for you, but I think adding more executables
complicates things for little clear advantage.

UI would obviously still have RPC functionality with -server. I don't mean dropping that. The UI links both the UI and the network code (for now, until this is separated out and the preferred UI<->core communication method is through RPC).

I just mean that the *headless* daemon is separate from the UI executable, which is the case for any other sane client/server-based program in existence, from bittorrent nodes to game servers.

It would also make it possible to build the command line RPC client (bitcoin-cl) *without* building the server or UI. Useful if you want to remotely control a Bitcoin daemon but not want to build it locally.

JS