[WIP] News87: PR Review Club summaries

Author: jnewbery

_posts/en/newsletters/2020-03-04-newsletter.md

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+---
+title: 'Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #87'
+permalink: /en/newsletters/2020/03/04/
+name: 2020-03-04-newsletter
+slug: 2020-03-04-newsletter
+type: newsletter
+layout: newsletter
+lang: en
+---
+
+## Action items
+
+## News
+
+## Highlights from the Bitcoin Core PR Review Club
+
+The [Bitcoin Core PR Review Club][] is a weekly IRC meeting for newer
+contributors to the Bitcoin Core project to learn about how to take part in the
+review process. An experienced Bitcoin Core contributor provides background
+information about a selected Pull Request and then leads a discussion about the
+PR on IRC.
+
+The Review Club is an excellent way to learn about the Bitcoin protocol, the
+Bitcoin Core reference implementation, and the process of making changes to
+Bitcoin. Notes, questions and meeting logs are posted on the website for each
+meeting for those who are unable to attend in real time, and as a permanent
+resource for those wishing to learn about the Bitcoin Core development process.
+
+In this section, we summarise some recent Review Club meetings.
+
+- **[O(1) OP_IF/NOTIF/ELSE/ENDIF script implementation / Abstract out script execution out of VerifyWitnessProgram()][review club 16902]:**
+  These Pull Requests ([Bitcoin Core #16902][] and [Bitcoin Core #18002][]) are
+  both small refactors that have been pulled out of the [Schnorr/Taproot
+  implementation PR][Bitcoin Core #17977]. The author explains in PR 18002:
+  "[this] simplifies the changes for Taproot significantly, and if it's going to
+  be necessitated by inclusion of that code, I may as well give it some
+  additional attention by PRing it independently."
+
+    Both PRs make changes to the Bitcoin Core's script interpreter code -- a
+    section of the codebase which is at the heart of Bitcoin Core's consensus
+    rules implementation, and is therefore very seldom changed by developers.
+    Discussion in the Review Club was centered on Bitcoin Core's use of asserts and
+    logging; performance and benchmarking; and how we can test and review changes
+    to consensus-critical code.
+
+[Bitcoin Core PR Review Club]:https://bitcoin-core-review-club.github.io/
+
+## Notable code and documentation changes
+
+{% include references.md %}
+{% include linkers/issues.md issues="16902,17977,18002" %}
+[review club 16902]: https://bitcoincore.reviews/16902.html