Production grade code education: Aiken, Plutarch & PlutusTx

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Catalyst Rider

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

Entity (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)

Build, finetune and prep in an edu style open-sourced request parsing code of WR DEX smart contracts in PlutusTx, Plutarch, and Aiken. Showcase differences in the performance, testing, and exporting.

[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

The source code will be shared in a public GitHub repository under the MIT license.

[METADATA] Horizons

Education

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

Build, finetune, document and process in an educational manner open-source piece of the WingRiders DEX smart contracts logic dealing with the user interaction request parsing, as it fits the following criteria:

• It is feature-rich enough to enable an interesting and detailed enough comparison between the languages
• It is compact and self-contained enough to allow for a concentrated analysis

We intend to adapt and open-source the PlutusTx version of the validation that is used in the WingRiders V1 Pools, the Plutarch one that is used in the V2 Pools, and build an additional implementation in Aiken.

We also propose to illustrate in an educational manner the process of testing the implementation and compiling the contracts with the purpose of using them on-chain. After that, a detailed analysis of the script size, execution costs, UTxO limits, and growth factors of all the resulting scripts will be conducted to highlight the differences in performance, code generation quality, ease of writing, reviewing, and testing among the chosen languages. Links to the public testnet transactions will be shared as a part of the learning materials.

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

The lack of accessible and practical educational materials on the differences between various popular languages used on Cardano and their specifics in terms of performance impacting approaches is a problem that hurts productivity, awareness and capability among the development community to continually advance the ecosystem forward in terms of technological improvement.

The developers get additional materials for a comprehensive understanding of the available options for writing applications on Cardano, a way to assess what they can expect when they choose a language in terms of the performance and quality of the generated code, how easy it is to write the validation and test it, if the language is a good fit semantically for the available on-chain functionality, and how easy it is to configure and export the scripts so they can be used on-chain.

The users get an overview of the technological choices available in the ecosystem to know what fees and contracts quality they can expect out of the applications they choose to use.

[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?

As WingRiders, we have a track-proven record of developing within the Cardano ecosystem. Over the years we’ve shown to be at the forefront of technological advancements when it comes to DEXes and Cardano in general. We were the first ones to bring support for Stableswaps, have a fully on-chain DAO governance, launched the first trustless non-custodial launchpad and recently V2 smart contracts with optimized transaction batching, new features such as Routed Swap, PathFinder, ZapIn/ZapOut and much more. Created a lot of open source tooling and continues to push the edge of what is possible with the Cardano chain evolving. 

Regarding fund management, we adhere to rigorous protocols ensuring robust financial stewardship and accountability. Our practices encompass the maintenance of transparent financial records, periodic internal audits, and strict compliance with financial reporting standards. We understand the imperative nature of prudent fund management and commit to upholding the highest standards of fiscal responsibility throughout the project's lifecycle.

As evidence, we have 2 Catalyst proposals from F10 and F11 with Proof of Achievement submitted and approved for all completed milestones except the final milestones, which are in progress. Two proposals from F12 are having Milestones 1 and 2 submitted ahead of the schedule. 

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

PlutusTx

Description: Adapting the existing PlutusTx request parsing code from the WingRiders DEX V1 codebase so it can run in isolation from the rest of the DEX logic as a separate validator. Preparing the development environment. Setting up the contracts exporting, writing unit tests.

Expected timeline: 18 working days

Outputs: An open-source public GitHub repository with the source code.

Acceptance criteria: The repository is publicly accessible and contains the contracts’ source code, exporting machinery, and tests.

Plutarch

Description: Adapting the existing Plutarch request parsing code from the WingRiders DEX V2 codebase so it matches the PlutusTx version algorithmically and can run in isolation from the rest of the DEX logic as a separate validator. Preparing the development environment. Setting up the contracts exporting, writing simple unit tests.

Expected timeline: 15 working days

Outputs: An open-source public GitHub repository with the source code.

Acceptance criteria: The repository is publicly accessible and contains the contracts’ source code, exporting machinery, and tests.

Aiken and Public test net runs

Description: Writing an Aiken implementation of the request parsing logic that matches the PlutusTx and the Plutarch ones. Preparing the development environment. Setting up the contracts exporting, writing simple unit tests. Running the generated code on the public test net to determine the performance differences between the implementations, the fees, and the upper batch limits of the scripts.

Expected timeline: 15 working days

Outputs: An open-source public GitHub repository with the source code. Transactions with the limits of the scripts on the public test net.

Acceptance criteria: The repository is publicly accessible and contains the contracts’ source code, exporting and tests. The transactions from testing are publicly available and shared through the WingRiders public channels

Project Close-out Report and Project Close-out Video

Description: Create final project completion report and video.

Expected timeline: 10 working days

Outputs:

• A 2/3 page written summary ‘Project Close-out Report
• Short video ‘Project Close-out Video

Acceptance Criteria:

• Project Close-out Report’ listing KPIs and how they were (or were not) addressed and what the next stage plans are with the product or service that was developed.
• Project Close-out Video’ outlining the project achievements and deliverables.

Evidence:

• Final project report available on a publicly-accessible link.
• Video available on a publicly accessible link.

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

WingRiders engineering team is composed of experienced professionals in blockchain technology and software development. Our team members stand behind projects like Adalite, Yoroi wallet, Emurgo’s first blockchain explorer/indexer, firmware for hardware wallets Trezor and Ledger (bringing them to Cardano), and WingRiders DEX and LaunchPad.

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

Milestone 1: PlutusTx

• Milestone Budget: ₳ 30,000
• Resource MDs: 
• Software engineer (senior & junior): 21
• Project manager: 1.5

Milestone 2: Plutarch

• Milestone Budget: ₳ 30,000
• Resource MDs: 
• Software engineer (senior & junior): 21
• Project manager: 1.5

Milestone 3: Aiken and Public testnet runs

• Milestone Budget: ₳ 32,000
• Resource MDs: 
• Software engineer (senior & junior): 21
• Project manager: 1.5

Final Milestone: Analysis, Project Completion Report and Video

• Milestone Budget: ₳ 8,000
• Resource MDs: 
• Software engineer: 12
• Marketing: 2
• Project manager: 0,5

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

The Cardano ecosystem gets high-quality educational materials based on a real production-running codebase about the available languages the developers can use. The users get an overview of what quality of the on-chain code they can expect from the various Dapps’ contracts based on the language they use, and the ecosystem as a whole gains additional much-needed accessible learning resources.