Between my ‘day job’, unikernel development, and R&D on NoM Smart Contracts I have been… busy. Recent discussions and development efforts have prompted me to step back and reassess the best path forward in terms of prioritizing resources and energy. Here’s where I believe the focus should be:
Building a Developer Base & Ecosystem
We need to attract and support developers, providing the resources and tools necessary for them to thrive. A strong developer ecosystem will unlock innovation and bring new energy to the Zenon Network.
A new developer’s portal devoted entirely to the ecosystem (developers.zenon.org) with technical documentation, tutorials, dev sandboxes, etc.
Smart Contracts on NoM
The future of zApps lies here, and advancing smart contracts on NoM is key to creating a robust ecosystem.
Will only be meaningful if #1 is eventually achieved.
Bitcoin Interoperability
A massive undertaking but one that will take Zenon to the next level. However, it is a substantial effort that will require a solid developer base (as in #1) before we can begin making meaningful progress.
Now, the reality is that I can only focus on one major initiative at a time in the near term. Both #1 and #2 are realistic projects I can take on personally, but #2 relies heavily on successfully building a developer community first.
I have decided to take to this forum in attempts to gain perspective on which direction the community thinks I should prioritize.
Please participate in the poll below and vote for what you believe should be the given a higher priority. Once we determine the community’s preference, I will submit a request for funding to support the winning initiative.
WHICH SHOULD BE GIVEN A HIGHER PRIORITY IN THE NEAR-TERM?
I personally think #2 will be required to achieve #1. And if we can have an open dialogue while you are doing #2 I think the marketing folks here can help with #1 (while you are doing #2).
In addition, @aliencoder is working on docs. The community has agreed to help when he makes the docs public.
So if you work on #2 and keep an open line of communication with the community we can parallel path #1 to the best of our ability. If you tackle #1 yourself, there is NO way the marketing community can help with #2 so it’s likely to take longer (unless you can sell some 10x devs on the vision).
Actually I’m reading this again. Can you elaborate on this a little? Do you require assistance to complete #2 and will these devs need to be able to solve this puzzle first?
I think attracting new “devs” is different that attracting devs that can help with #2. You have been involved with the project for years. You understand it from the ground up. Also I assume the experience required to help with #2 requires someone with highly specialized skills. Maybe only a hand full of people on earth can help?? Can #1 really help you attract the type of people needed to work on #2?
We are perpetually stuck in the Chicken & Egg problem. LOL.
I am hoping to have a working WASM runtime prototype on my own in a short period of time. Some insight from other devs may be needed, especially with regards to gas metering mechanisms and cryptographic methods and proofs (I am thinking zk-snark)
Once I have a testnet running, the real value of the devs will become apparent. We will need people to build on the platform.