Research migrating to new async runtime (async-std -> tokio)

[a-moreira]

async-std is not well maintained anymore, and tokio seems to be the de-facto choice for an async runtime in Rust:
https://corrode.dev/blog/async/

[lordshashank]

@a-moreira @Davidson-Souza , I was looking into the migration, few queries on this-

• async-std's unbounded function gives sender and reciever, while using tokio we would have choice of UnboundedSender and Sender, would it be better to use unbounded_channel or channel (unbounded one imo)?
• tokio::net::TcpStream does not implement clone, i guess we would have to use Arc<Mutex<TcpStream>> to share stream between multiple tasks which would need whole code revamp, is there any better way?

[a-moreira]

@lordshashank

• Use Tokio's Unbounded Channels.
• this is a good question, IMHO I'd be better to avoid putting TcpStream into an Arc, and instead move it to a separate thread where we communicate via channels (actor model), but that might require a big re-write.

[a-moreira]

@lordshashank I started this effort here https://github.com/Davidson-Souza/Floresta/pull/110 but had to back away due to some personal reasons. Maybe that helps.

[jaoleal]

This issue was proposed as a Summer of Bitcoin assignment right ? Can someone add the summer-of-bitcoin label ?

[a-moreira]

@jaoleal I'm not aware of that, are you @Davidson-Souza?

[jaoleal]

https://www.summerofbitcoin.org/project-ideas-details/floresta/r/recCx3APdQ11FICfZ
@a-moreira Check this...

[jaoleal]

I can create the issue and tag both of you @a-moreira and @Davidson-Souza if you all prefer this way, since the tittle for this one is about research only... If so, I do appreciate some time so i can get more information about the work to be done, the affected modules, final objective, info source and etc...

[a-moreira]

@jaoleal cool! It's ok for me.
Regarding the research part, I think it's pretty much decided that we should move away from async-std and use Tokio. It's just a matter of starting the refactor, which will not be small.

[Davidson-Souza]

Hi @jaoleal. Yes, this project is one of my SoB's project ideas. I agree with @a-moreira, we know we want to do this, we just need to actually do.

[Davidson-Souza]

Done in #172