Cardano EasyDev VS Tool

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Hien Phan

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

Entity (Not Incorporated)

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

3

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language

No

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

The purpose of the proposal is to develop a VS extension to deploy Aiken smart contract with GUI easily to facilitate smart contract development and developer learning curve of Cardano.

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

No

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.”

No dependencies.

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

Yes

[GENERAL] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

All of our source call will be shared to community under Apache 2.0 open source license

[METADATA] Horizons

Developer Tools

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

How do you perceive the problem you are solving?

[Challenges]

We have learning and working with Aiken smart contract, and working with CLI can be challenging:

- Time consuming: CLI can be slower for tasks like setting up environments, managing dependencies, and deploying smart contract

- Complexity: managing multiple commands and scripts can be complex

- Lack of visualization: CLI lacks visual, making it harder to debug and understand contract

- Collaboration: CLI tools often lack features for real time collaboration

- Learning curve: CLI requires specific commands and syntax, which can be a barrier for new developers

[Solutions]

Cardano Easydev is a tool that simplifies Cardano Aiken smart contract development

- User-friendly interface: Cardano Easydev integrates Aiken commands into a friendly GUI, enhancing usability

- Streamlined deployment: direct deployment of smart contracts from Visual Studio Code to minimizes setup complexity

- Enhanced developer learning curve for Cardano: the extesion lowers technical barriers for new developers learning Cardano, making smart contract testing accessible and easy to new developers

Key features:

- Write code, build simulate, and deploy Aiken smart contracts

- Account creation and management: simplifies user onboarding with straightforward account setup features

- Simulate transactions

- Deployment and testing of aiken contracts: enables efficient deployment and testing of contracts directly from the GUI of the extension in VS code

What are your reasons for approaching it in the way that you have?

• Most developers use VS code for their Aiken smart contract development
• Building an extension to support Aiken smart contract development will support more developers and avoid fragmented development environment for Cardano developers 
• We have experience in working and developing tools for VS Code Editor 

Who will your project engage?

Our tool will attract 2 main user groups:

• Existing cardano developers to speed up the development
• New Web2 and Web3 developers to onboard to Cardano ecosystem

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

In what way will the success of your project bring value to the Cardano Community?

• Increased Developer Adoption: New Web2 developers and Web3 developers can find easier to learn and deploy smart contract to Cardano with friendly GUI, thus increase the conversion rate to attract new developers to Cardano
• Increased developer productivity: Existing Web3 developers can use the tool to speed up their development
• Quality and Security for projects: Both new and existing developers can save time to test or simulate transactions for their projects, thus facilitating the project development on Cardano
• Education and Development Tool: The extension can serve as both development and educational resources for developers
• Opensource: Providing open source code to other projects will help save time and costs

How will you measure this impact?

• Quantitative: number of usages, downloads of the package, github stars, issues, feature requests in Github repository.
• Qualitative: feedbacks from both new Web2 and Web3 developers.

 

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

Our team consists of members who are strong and have great experience in smart contract development, tool development, frontend development. Our team won several top prizes for developer tools in Sui, NEAR, Algorand, and Movement ecosystem. Our similar developer tool is now using by Move developers and have been receiving great feedback.

[PROJECT MILESTONES] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

1st Month

Milestone outputs:

• Extension and functionality design
• Business analysis for the extension
• UI design for the extension
• Coding for account creation setup features
• Project management (organizing, and controlling resources, tasks)

Acceptance criteria

• Detail design documentation and deliverable
• Code for functionalities and documentation published on Github

Evidence of milestone completion

• Deliverable of detail design for the extension, both user flow and UI
• Github commits showing the development progress and integration
• Screenshots and video demonstration of runtime functionality
• A copy of meeting minutes uploaded to github

2nd Month

Milestone outputs:

• Account management feature and UI integrated with VS Code
• Smart contract deployment feature and UI integrated with VS Code
• Dependency management and UI integrated with VS Code
• Fontend development
• Back end development
• Project management (organizing, and controlling resources, tasks)

Acceptance criteria

• Detail design documentation and deliverable
• Code for functionalities and documentation published on Github

Evidence of milestone completion

• Deliverable of detail design for the extension, both user flow and UI
• Github commits showing the development progress and integration
• Screenshots and video demonstration of runtime functionality
• A copy of meeting minutes uploaded to github

3rd month

Milestone outputs:

• Smart contract testing feature and UI integrated with VS Code
• Wallet management feature and UI integrated with VS Code
• Documentation and Examples
• Testing, fixing bugs and gathering feedback
• Extension release
• Website built for the extension
• User tutorial documentation
• Project management (organizing, and controlling resources, tasks)

Acceptance criteria

• Detail design documentation and deliverable
• Code for functionalities and documentation published on Github
• Video demo

Evidence of milestone completion

• Deliverable of detail design for the extension, both user flow and UI
• Github commits showing the development progress and integration
• Screenshots and video demonstration of runtime functionality
• A copy of meeting minutes uploaded to github
• URL website built for the extension
• User tutorial documentation

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Here are our team members:

• Hien Phan ( project team lead, top prize winners at Orainchain global hackathon, SUI

hackathon, NEAR hackathon, AI global hackathon)

Github : https://github.com/hienphv

• Mr Linh Tran: Senior frontend developer and project manager with 10+ years of experience

Github : https://github.com/linh-2t

• Mr Tung Le: Smart contract developer, winner of SUI hackathon, NEAR hackathon, Algorand hackathon

Github : https://github.com/tung-lee

• Mr Thang Le: Smart contract developer, winner of NEAR hackathon; ex-blockchain research at CMC corporation; experienced with multiple blockchain ecosystem
• Ms Thanh Hoang: Business analyst
• Ms Hai Tran: UI/UX designer 
• Ms Lam Tran (7+ years of experience in operations and marketing)

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

Our proposal is expected to be divided into 03 milestones with the following expected budget:

1. Total Budget & Costs = $24,000 ~ 70,000 ADA (USD/ADA Rate = 0.34).
2. Milestone 1: $ 8000 ~ 23,333 ADA
3. Milestone 2: $ 8000 ~ 23,333 ADA
4. Milestone: $ 8000 ~ 23,333 ADA

[VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

The value of the proposal for the Cardano ecosystem can be demonstrated by highlighting the following key benefits:

• Provide an easy way to learn, develop, and deploy smart contract on Cardano through friendly UI, instead of commands with CLI
• Provide a tool to increase the productivity of project development on Cardano
• Provide a tool to testing Aiken contracts easily
•  Enhanced developer learning curve for Cardano: the extesion lowers technical barriers for new developers learning Cardano, making smart contract testing accessible and easy to new developers