A first look at the Cardano Developer Portal

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A first look at the Cardano Developer Portal

(Written by @ElliotHill of the Cardano Foundation)

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As we prepare to release the first components of Goguen, we are edging closer to welcoming developer talent and creative individuals from around the world to build on Cardano.

The first component of Goguen to be released will be tokenization—the ability to issue native tokens on the Cardano blockchain, which we explored in detail in one of our previous blog posts. It will also be the first time developers can write and deploy smart contracts on Cardano through Plutus and Marlowe, and launch a variety of decentralized applications, or DApps.

We are approaching an explosive period of growth for the Cardano protocol, where developers will finally be empowered to let their creativity flow freely, and we are exploring new ways to accommodate your passion.

That is why we are pleased to announce that we will soon be launching the Developer Portal, an all-encompassing portal where developers can access documentation, share ideas, collaborate, promote their projects, engage in discussions, and more importantly have fun while building on Cardano.

Here, we will take a first look at the Developer Portal, and discover how you can become one of the first developers to participate. Alternatively, if you are already hyped for the developer portal and don’t need any more encouragement, you can go ahead and sign up for our waiting list here!

What will be included on the Developer Portal?

The Developer Portal will be a one-stop-shop for all things development, such as providing easy access to documentation and access to subject matter experts. Let’s explore some of the first features you can expect to find.

Cardano documentation

The Developer Portal will make it easier than ever before to find and navigate essential Cardano documentation. Whether you are starting from scratch and launching a Cardano node for the very first time, or if you are a seasoned developer ready to build the next major DApp, the Cardano documentation and Developer Portal will help you get started.

The Cardano documentation available on the Developer Portal will be an enhanced version of the documentation available today, with a much greater focus on Plutus and Marlowe-related docs—such as how to write a smart contract, or build a DApp.

Developer-focused content

The Developer Portal will include developer-focused articles, video content, infographics, reporting and measuring tools, tutorials, downloadable guides, and data visualizations that developers can leverage to improve their development experience on Cardano.

These tools will be crucial for attracting enterprises and financial institutions to build on Cardano, and they will also serve as an invaluable resource for developers looking to learn a new programming language, build out their knowledge of Haskell, or explore new Cardano components.

There will also be ways for the developer community to give feedback on the type of content they would like to have access to, which will help us steer our outputs to best help developers build on Cardano and inspire your development goals.

Developer discussions and relations

Forming long-lasting relationships with developers is one of our key missions, and the Developer Portal will be the perfect platform to do so. We want to encourage developers to take part in discussions, make suggestions on Cardano improvements through our CIPs, and make code commits through our GitHub.

As an open-source platform, Cardano needs passionate developers who will take ownership of writing and building smart contracts and DApps, and that is why the Developer Portal will be a place where developers can collaborate, share ideas, and build in synergy with one another.

We currently have dedicated areas on the Cardano Forum, where developers and technical users such as stake pool operators can take part in discussions. The Developer Portal will feature similar developer relations capabilities, although all the more interactive as it will be built alongside other developer-focused features.

In time, we hope the Developer Portal will become a bustling hub of developer activity—driven by developers, for developers.

How can I become an early user of the Developer Portal?

Whether you are a seasoned developer or just learning your first steps of Haskell, we encourage you to signup for our Developer Portal waiting list.

You will be among the first developers to explore the portal, driving the discussions and helping to shape Cardano. As an early subscriber, you will also have access to exclusive content while the portal is being prepared.

Most importantly, the Developer Portal will empower you to connect with other like-minded developers, who could become friends, collaborators, or even co-founders.

Join the Developer Portal waiting list today by signing up here. We look forward to welcoming you to our developer community.

Want to read more technical blogs in the meantime? Check out some of our recent articles below:

Read more articles in our Shelley blog series below:

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This is fantastic , was eager to get my hands dirty in Plutos.

Thanks for putting this

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Welcome @piyushthapa :muscle: Eager to see what developers can do with “Plutus” :wink:

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Thanks for the update Elliot

Exciting times :+1:

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Thanks for the update …but it all seems too late and not enough
I see nothing new and the world outside the Cardano Ecosystem knows nothing about Cardano of any significance…The Cardano foundation is totally responsible for this failure
The price of ADA has dropped almost 60% over a short period because few have the patience to wait for news even future news of developments on the Ecosystem
No Dapps No Apps No real marketing ,a poor and ineffective branding poor communications strategy
You talk about fundamentally changing the way the world works but we see nothing but dreams and vacuous statements …
We have Shelley and stake pools but complete decentralisation is years away
A foundation which is mute and inept aloof to the expressions of frustrations from the faithful followers of Cardano
Constantly let down and disappointed with the stasis and endless delays
The momentum is lost ,the competition for the same space and position has shot past
I blame the Cardano foundation …What a feckless inept crowd you are
It’s no surprise things are going from bad to worse
Come on guys…Wake up we need real news not empty promises

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I completely agree mate

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Hi @Gib_Guy,

You are of course welcome to your opinion but I must respectfully disagree with you, and also look out for the interests of my colleagues and I when you use words like ‘feckless’ and ‘inept’.

Shelley was a huge undertaking for all Cardano ecosystem partners, both for the Cardano Foundation, EMURGO, and IOHK. After the launch, we achieved almost a thousand stake pools in a matter of weeks - if you don’t consider this a leap towards true decentralization, I would like to see your assesment of some of our peers in the blockchain space.

You will recognize of course that in order for DApps to be built on the Cardano blockchain, we must attract developers. Naturally, this is the impetus behind creating a Developer Portal.

DApps will arrive during the rollout of Goguen, as will tokenization and smart contract capabilities. These components are being built to the highest specifications, so that the DApps and smart contracts launched atop Cardano are simply the highest assurance in the world - this takes time, and it’s not wholly dependant (or even mostly dependant) on the Cardano Foundation.

When these components are ready, marketing will begin - it would be both preemptive and a poor allocation of time and budget to market components which are not yet ready for market, as I’m sure you would agree.

That said, we are making every effort to prepare for their arrival well ahead of time. Hence, the launch of the Developer Portal, the recent onboarding of two new senior leadership members who previously held roles at Big Four consultancy firm PwC, and more. In terms of marketing our technology to a wider audience, we do seek out and regularly publish op-eds in leading industry publications, and we will be increasing our prescence in business and enterprise circles going forward - in preparation for the release of smart contracts and tokens.

We are in fact quite the opposite of aloof and mute to the concerns of the community. Just a couple of weeks ago we held a lengthy Q&A between Ambassadors and Foundation representatives, including Council member Nathan Kaiser, where we adressed certain concerns within the community. These issues were internally deliberated on extensively, and resulted in an extensively detailed communiqué to redress these concerns. The difference here was that this feedback was raised respectfully, through the proper channels, and didn’t resort to name calling.

From my personal point of view as both a community member and Cardano Foundation team member, it is tiring to receive such negative feedback when there are so many fantastic things going on behind the scenes, and indeed publicly. Likewise, many of the Cardano Foundation members are regularly available in the Forums to respond to your concers - as I am doing now. You may have noticed if you frequent the Forums that our communications have increased tenfold in recent weeks, both through formal announcements and interaction on a 1:1 basis.

That said, I understand it is sometimes difficult to keep up to date with our news and announcements and so I will share them below for your ease of access, in case you have missed any of our updates:

Educational and general interest content:

News, partnerships and communiques:

New hires:

RFPs, CIPs, and development:

For the sake of readability, I have only included news and content from the past two months. We are actually moving from strength to strength and our development milestones are unchanged.

Regardless of your estimations of the Cardano Foundation team, I would like to remind you that your opinions and feedback do matter to us, and I hope that you will look more favourably on our efforts going forward. It is after all one of the most crucial years for Cardano.

Thank you and have a great rest of the week as we move into the weekend :slight_smile:

Elliot

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[quote=“ElliotHill, post:7, topic:40544”]
“After the launch, we achieved almost a thousand stake pools in a matter of weeks”
This statement disingenuous How do you take credit for the stake pools…The stake pools were created by their owners at their risk and expense…The community has started to create decentralisation facilitated by Shelley network…Credit should go to the community not the CF…
What is the true timescale for full decentralisation? …I’m sure the community would like to know

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That is 100% true @Gib_Guy - you will find no argument from me there. However when I talk about ‘we’ I am referring of course to the entire Cardano ecosystem as a whole, because ‘we’ (that is you, the community, stake pool operators, the Cardano Foundation, EMURGO, and IOHK) are all working towards a common goal, and we must work in synergy to acheive that goal.

I am of course not implying that the Cardano Foundation runs or maintains pools, I am referring to our acheivements as an ecosystem and as a blockchain - we should be collectively proud of this, should we not? I know that I certainly am. There is no need for division or compartmentalization within our wider community.

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“We must attract developers…”

How have you reached out to attract them other than this late development of the Developer Portal
Why has this taken so long to materialise?
You have had years to plan the development of this portal
You knew long ago that the developers would need encouragement and support to help them develop Dapps etc yet there hasn’t been a clear communications strategy that I have seen as to a clear roadmap of areas of opportunities available to be built o the Cardano ecosystem
This delay was highlighted in my OP…Surely one could easily argue as many have that you have failed to stimulate the need and opportunity and that’s why the CF is responsible and to blame for the indifference in the market place
That I would argue is the core dereliction of duty …

I and many other Cardano community members have repeatedly asked in a number of cardano foundation managed forums for a list of potential markets and specific Dapps only to have the questions ignored…Perhaps it’s because nothing is happening

Again I blame the CF for not actively promoting the general ideas for the use of the Cardano Ecosystem but nothing
There is no real need to have fully formed ideas before communicating the power of the Cardano ecosystem
One can easily create awareness of the future potential to trigger interest in the minds of developers
Developers will only be interested if the CF and it’s partners stimulate and promote confidence in the potential for the Ecosystem
Why would anyone be interested in investing time and money in the idea if the core don’t have the confidence and belief in the system…This is the fundamental failure of the CF
You have stood in the background under the impression that we will build it and they will come…That philosophy doesn’t work any longer.
The Internet has now empowered the consumer ,investor and developer to receive messages from so many competitors and they have been seduced by many who have really thought out the potential and publicised the ideas in an effective communications strategy .
The Branding and marketing programme is a case in point …I have raised that issue many times before
I want the foundation to be dynamic,etrully visionary and actively engaged not just within our Echo Chamber and community ,but to the wider public and huge potential markets out there for Cardano
No one I have spoken to in my wide circle of industry contacts has even heard of Cardano…The foundation or the real potential of what Cardano can bring to the world economy and society as a whole
Charles Hoskinson is the only figurehead that is known and that is within the Blockchain community that I know
I am a Cardano Evangelist …to the core
I believe we can change the world as a community
It is so disappointing not to be able to have access to online materials to be able to use for spreading the word…Tangible, easy to use assets…Graphics…Easily understandable bullet stories to share…Real world illustrations of what can be achieved using the Ecosystem
Assets that can be shared by the community to reach out educate and inform the wider community of potential end users…our clients our future audiences…the influencers ,the press…the media
We need this and we need this now
You have had so much time to prepare and have wasted it and that is why I have criticised what you have done before and what is seemingly undeveloped or available
I care…We care
Come on so much to gain so much more to lose if we don’t act and act now
ATB
GG

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With respect, all of this was addressed in my first reply - we haven’t marketed our DApp cababilities and components because they are not ready to build on yet. As a branding professional I am sure you can understand that marketing a product which is not yet ready would be counterproductive - both in terms of time, budget, and engagement.

Nevertheless, we are and have taken steps to attract developer talent. In terms of enterprise, I cannot put it more plainly than this - our extensive enterprise outreach is not seen first and foremost by the community, because the community are not enterprise users. This doesn’t mean that there is nothing happening. In fact, quite the opposite, the Cardano Foundation signed several memorandums of understanding earlier this year with potential industry partners - lined up for when the relevant components are ready.

I linked several articles that had appeared in external industry media outlets in my original post. We have a strategy in place. This is something I myself personally work on. We have onboarded multiple new team members this year for a reason - including a new CEO who will undoubtably become a needed figurehead as you have identified.

I will now leave the floor open to other members of the forum who may like to comment on the launch of the Developer Portal, as this is an important development for our ecosystem and I fear we could go back and forth here for some time and run the risk of derailing the thread.

I would instead invite you to open a separate thread in our dedicated forum feedback area to continue this discussion with other members of the community.

Once again I do see that your intentions are well-meaning and your passion for the Cardano protocol is clear, so I personally thank you for participating in these discussions - but respectfully there are dedicated channels to do so.

Thank you for your understanding,

Elliot

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@Gib_Guy we like to hear critical voices, but please, even if you criticize let’s keep this place clean and welcoming. The high level of aggressiveness does not help anyone. Thank you much!

As far as I understand your core message is “the Developer Portal is too late”, even though there is nothing to develop right now. How does that fit together?

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Thank you Elliot
I apologise if I am a tad assertive as for aggression none intended
I appreciate the time you have taken to reply to my comments,it is indeed welcome to have a constructive and helpful exchange,thanks also for the links which are indeed helpful and interesting but don’t quite address the core issues I raised…
You are correct in your assumption that I indeed have the community’s interest at heart and the future success of the Cardano Ecosystem
I was under the impression ,perhaps naively ,that there was a vision of the applications in generalistic terms that help illustrate examples of how the Cardano Ecosystem can work to improve the way the world interacts and transacts across many activities
Surely it would be helpful as a steer for future Dapp developers as to the key areas of opportunities and uses of the ecosystem
I think this would help the non developer market indeed to understand what Cardano can achieve and the benefits in kind of using it
This may sound simplistic ,but I assure you it would go a long way and penetrate deep into the minds of a huge audience potential across the world.
The community has placed enormous trust and money investment time and faith in the Foundation Emurgo and IOHK
The stake pool expansion is a fantastic expression of that hope and support for the cardano concept ,but in return it is important to maintain confidence otherwise that good will could disappear rapidly as we have seen on other Blockchain concepts
It is far from too late …and I’m sure that when Goguen launches there will be another rush of excitement
In return please consider the need to support the community by being more active on promoting the ecosystem to a wider audience beyond and outside our close knit community of interest
Good luck and God Speed Elliot and to all the CF team
Cheers
GG

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Hi @Gib_Guy, thank you for your kind words and I am glad we have had this exchange. :slight_smile:

I’m happy to share there absolutely is a vision for DApps on Cardano - in fact, next week’s blog article will be a deep-dive into DApps and within that article we will detail some of the industries we are hoping to target and explore. I really hope that it will answer some of your questions and help layout the direction for smart contracts and DApps during Goguen.

This is also a key focus for the Cardano Foundation, and in the coming weeks I hope we will have plenty of articles to share with you in third-party publications which raise the profile of the Cardano protocol in diverse industries - watch this space.

Thank you @Gib_Guy I do respect your opinions and passion for the protocol. I hope we can continue to keep positive and thoughtful discussions going in the future! :slight_smile:

All the best,

Elliot

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Rome wasn’t built in a day is all I have to say. If you know anything about the overall bandwidth of Cardano and future development you would be filled with promise, not despair. Big picture, dude. Big picture.

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Awesome, can’t wait to code on Plutus

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The night is darkest before dawn. And the sun will be shining bright on Cardano.
All I see are positive things from Cardano Foundation to aid in the adoption of Cardano.

The only good thing that has happened in 2020 is Cardano development in terms of tech, community, products, and overall growth.

if anyone’s bags are feeling heavy i will load them up on my pile.

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You can start today, did you try the playgrounds already?

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Yes I did after watching michael and Dr. jan on the testnet, also started going over the e-book by Lars Brünjes, and Polina Vinogradova v1 though.

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"we haven’t marketed our DApp cababilities and components because they are not ready to build on yet "

It is a little bit concerning that the community has been told for several years now that there are projects and dapps that are looking to build on cardano. There are none.

Who would open a restaurant (or any business for that matter) and say, until we build the restaurant, open it, and have customers inside, we won’t worry about hiring an executive chef, wont worry about figuring out what type of food to serve. no need to do these things until the restaurant is open. That is not a business plan. That is not a well planned strategy. That is not a plan that has been developed alongside highly skilled and technical experts from PwC (btw the community was never briefed on what PwC actually did).

Emurgo has had tens or hundreds of startups go through the dlab accelerator program over the past few years. None are publicly stating they will be building on Cardano.

‘We have a strategy for that’ or ‘we have a plan in place for that’ is what I keep seeing written by CF employees. These strategies or plans are never laid out for the community. I would even question whether there is a plan to begin with, and if there is, why is this not shared with the community?

I think CF needs to listen, take in the feedback, and maybe not respond. As I read these responses, I wonder why the Cardano community is asking these type of questions and CF keeps saying ‘yea there is a plan for that’ when it is clear to us that there is no plan, and maybe never was a plan.

Here we are three years after Cardano was created and the entity behind driving adoption of the network literally has no plan or strategy for bringing developers into the ecosystem? Except a portal. Three years…for a portal. It is disappointing to hear that building on Cardano, adoption of cardano, and transparency for Cardano was/is not the top most priority for CF, Emurgo.

How many employees at CF work towards adoption and how many are ‘moderators’ online? Why does CF still have no community representation on the council? Why is CF council so opposed to having community leadership on the council?

I don’t chime in on the forum often, but I think that the ‘we got a plan for that’ when the community can clearly see that is not reality, is a problem. Lay out the plan, lay out the strategy and cut out the ‘fluff’ in responses!

The community wants confidence and clarity.

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