Please describe your proposed solution.
This proposal suggests to create educational videos about the programming language OpShin which lead absolute beginners from the basics of Python to deploying their very own dApp on Cardano. But what is OpShin?
This is OpShin: a toolchain that lets developers construct Cardano smart contracts in Python. Why Python?
The problems of Haskell
Haskell is hard
As an exotic language, Haskell has very few people able to work on it, ranking only the 25th most used language on GitHub, with only 0.39% of the userbase actively using it. Very few people are proficient in Haskell, and even fewer can help you out with the peculiarities of PlutusTx: with how to implement smart contracts on Cardano.
Instead of building in the language you already know and use in everyday work and life, you have to learn a completely new language – and peer support for it is limited.
On-chain code doesn’t integrate smoothly with off-chain code
Whilst the on-chain part of a dApp handles the transactions on the blockchain, the off-chain part often handles the rest of the dApp. Developers are forced to use two completely separate tools, often in separate languages. This costs Focus - and introduces unnecessary friction at integration and potential security issues.
Instead of working on how to best solve a problem to serve your users’ needs, you’re pulling your hair trying to make the two halves of your dApp work together.
Smart Contract size is limited, and PlutusTx is hefty
Smart Contracts have tight constraints on size and execution steps. PlutusTx and other tools often translate type constraints to expensive and unnecessary on-chain transactions, limiting developers in the complexity of what they can build.
Instead of building the best solution possible, you’re hamstringing yourself just to make sure the most critical parts of your smart contract can be executed on the blockchain.
How OpShin frees you
The OpShin Toolchain comprises several projects that aim to facilitate the development of Smart Contracts and dApps on Cardano. They are largely based on Python, or integrate well with it for maximal accessibility.
Python has a wide and growing community
At the time of writing, Python is the second-most used language on GitHub, with 14.75% of the active userbase working with Python, and enjoys a 22.5% year-over-year increase in users; this is driven in part by its utility in data science and machine learning.
Everyone who knows Python can leverage the toolstack available for Python development to build on Cardano; and that is a lot of people, with a lot of tools.
OpShin natively integrates with Python Cardano tooling
Developers can build both off-chain and on-chain tooling in just Python, and are able to directly import definitions and functions that are defined in the on-chain contract, into their off-chain tooling. This reduces the friction that is naturally-induced by Cardano’s design when building combined tools.
Everyone who knows Python can develop fluently and without interruption, without the cost of constantly having to change gears and mindsets just to build dApps.
OpShin is light, fast, and maintains security
OpShin enforces strict typing on the high-level programming: it implements a type system on top of Python type hints. However, all traces of typing are erased during compilation, for a maximum efficiency program. OpShin beats many programming languages when taken to the test for real use-cases.
Everyone who knows Python can build a dApp that runs faster, costs their users less, and executes more.
How does OpShin perform?
How much does OpShin save?
Testimonials
“ImperatorLang makes smart contract development the easy part of dApp development. I have spent far longer on off-chain code than on implementing smart contracts.” - @while0x1, SPO
“My experience was very positive. As a python library, eopsin does well at performing as expected. It's clear when things don't work and the language is intuitive.” - Julius Frost, Full-time Python dev
How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?
The OpShin toolchain is and will always be fully open-source. This is a necessary property of a Smart Contract language that requires widespread trust and inspectability.
The impact on Cardano is already huge - within 5 months of the initial release, 3 dApps have been released built on OpShin. We are expecting that this will grow even more with additional funds to foster the development of documentation, developer experience improvements and educational content.
We want to make sure that community members and new developers can easily start building on Cardano. For this purpose a custom made introduction to Python programming and writing of smart contracts on Cardano will be created.
How do you intend to measure the success of your project?
We will measure success by determining the number of launched Smart Contracts and dApps based on OpShin and in general on Cardano.
Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?
The created lessons will be uploaded weekly to the OpShin youtube channel. They will be linked directly from the opshin-pioneer-program github repository and replace existing, Plutus focused material.