The feature is GBT directly from the bitcoin daemon. The problem is that GBT REQUIRES an address. Not an anti-feature but not the way "get work" worked. Now Con can't possibly setup a binary with everyone's individual bitcoin address. People do see that I hope. Since it won't mine without an address one is put into the code so that if there is a problem solo mining would work. There is bold mention of it in the release notes. It is stated in the readme. It's not really a huge thing but people seem overly bothered by needing to read when upgrading. Things change. For having to put in a bitcoin address on the new version you get a much better work supply from your daemon.
If you forget to fill in your pool credentials, should it then just default to mining using Con's credentials?
If you leave out a parameter necessary for mining on a given pool, it will just not mine on that pool, and will provide a message explaining the situation.
Solo mining requires a payout address, so if that parameter is not provided, then clearly, solo mining should not occur on anyone's address, and the user should be informed about the situation.
Am I missing something here?
I would like to think so. There could be a failure caused by not having an address. I'm not sure because I didn't have anything to do with GBT about how it handles no address. It's possible it just pays out to null. I am not sure.
The problem I usually see on here is people not reading the manual. Then they ask why it won't work or worse state flat out it doesn't work. Somewhat often providing no information on what doesn't work. Now this solution fixes one point. Solo mining would work. Now I am not a master of GBT and can find no info on how it's handled without a valid address to payout to and generate work from. Maybe everything looks fine I don't know. What I do know is that a solution that is clearly documented was put into place. Likely for a good reason. Maybe there is a crash associated with no address. The thing is that to your bitcoin daemon you would connect perfectly. You either make illegitimate work or have something else go wrong with nothing specified. I don't imagine the same people who can't be bothered to read and find out that there is a hard coded address would notice their work not paying out anything to them either. Worse if they did notice there is no possible recourse. You can't ask someone for a block you mined if it didn't go to a wallet.
How many people come on here complaining that cgminer just closes when they try to run it? Quite a few. They don't run from the command line so they don't see exit info. Some people ignore or can't read fast enough to actually notice what flashes on the screen when cgminer starts running. Could they dump it to a log and find out sure. I am not saying people should be punished for not reading directly. What I am saying is that sometimes things change and reading the release notes is a great way to find out. Con didn't hide what the default behavior is. He flat out said what it does. He told people in bold how to fix it. This is on top of it being listed in the readme.