[BENCH] - New build feature dummy-vid to help with VID benchmarks

[ggutoski]

What is this task and why do we need to work on it?

What is the task?

Currently this repo has a couple branches whose name contains dummy-vid, such as https://github.com/EspressoSystems/HotShot/tree/sishan/dummy-vid . The purpose of these branches is to facilitate benchmarks with and without VID. Unfortunately, these branches have fallen hopelessly behind main. It is impractical to keep these branches up to date with main. Instead, let's make a build feature that, when set, builds hotshot without VID. This design pattern could also be used to mock alternative VID schemes for the purpose of gathering preliminary benchmark data before we invest the resources to fully develop such an alternate VID scheme.

Why work on it?

My goal is to do exactly this; we have a new candidate VID scheme and I want some preliminary benchmark data for it. Also, the ability to disable/change VID at a moment's notice is valuable; a build feature has a better chance of maintaining this ability than an old branch that needs constant maintenance.

What work will need to be done to complete this task?

• Add a new build feature dummy-vid.
• Port stale work from branch https://github.com/EspressoSystems/HotShot/tree/sishan/dummy-vid to this new feature flag.
• Add another new build feature dummy-vid-avidm that mocks the work that would be done in a proper implementation of the new candidate VID scheme mentioned above.
• Add CI checks for these new build features?

Are there any other details to include?

No response

What are the acceptance criteria to close this issue?

• new build features pass CI
• We can obtain useful benchmark data for (i) current VID, (ii) no VID, and (iii) AVID-M VID from as per instructions https://github.com/EspressoSystems/HotShot/blob/main/crates/examples/push-cdn/README.md via the command

just async_std example all-push-cdn -- --config_file ./crates/orchestrator/run-config.toml

Branch work will be merged to (if not the default branch)

No response