Please describe your proposed solution.
We believe that a C-family language with functional semantics is what the Cardano dapp ecosystem needs to get to the next level. As trivial as it may sound syntax is a barrier to learning a new language. The ultimate goal is to have a language that is more palatable to what a majority of developers are used to. Simply put, most developers are used to curly braces.
Instead of approaching this top down, we've decided to work bottom up. So far we've ported the Untyped Plutus Core implementation from Haskell to Rust. Up next is the interpreter for Untyped Plutus Core. Not only is this work useful for eventually building a full Cardano node in Rust but it allows Aiken to own the full compilation toolchain for Cardano smart contracts.
Since we will own the full compilation toolchain we aim to also introduce static analysis to Untyped Plutus Core to further increase the security of Smart Contracts on Cardano.
We want Aiken to be a blazing fast, portable and modular toolkit for Cardano application development written in Rust.
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
Having a familiar syntax and integrated toolchain will accelerate development for both solo developers and small to medium sized teams. Optimizing smart contract developer workflows will drive more developers to the ecosystem.
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
The biggest concern would be the new language getting no adoption. We can build all this and still have no one use it.
So far we've gotten good feedback from the community. Since we are working bottom up and providing a development toolkit with the language, we think that people will adopt the new language simply because the rest of the tools are such a joy to use.