Original Placement:
Today’s guest on the Cardano SPO column is a stake pool operated by Ronald, a Computer Science graduate and currently CEO of Dquadrant a development company based in the Netherlands: JUNO Stake Pool [JUNO].
The previous guest was a stake pool operated by Shawn, a Mechanical Engineering Technologist based in Toronto, Canada.
This column is where I invite Stake Pool Operators (SPO) to share their stories and vision as a way to connect with and learn about the Cardano Community.
Hi, thanks for your time. Tell us something about yourself, where are you based and what are your backgrounds?
My name is Ronald and I’m the Stake Pool Operator (SPO) of JUNO.
I graduated in computer science, with a focus on chip design. I’ve been active in Information Technology for 30 years. I started as a software developer and worked on the dividing line of technology and commerce for many years.
I’m also the co-founder and CEO of Dquadrant, a development company from the Netherlands with a long track record on Cardano.
What’s the path that led you to Cardano and to become a Stake Pool Operator (SPO)?
I’ve been interested in innovation, technology and finance for many years and that’s how I came in contact with blockchain technology in 2015.
I built my own Ethereum mining rig with six GPUs and started to share my experience in blockchain technology with others at the University of Twente by lecturing students.
I worked on a few projects on Ethereum together with my business partner and started researching other blockchain-based projects as I learned about the flaws of Ethereum.
That’s when I discovered Cardano as it was going public. I started to familiarize myself with its technology by operating a stake pool early on the Incentivized Testnet and I’m currently running on all Cardano networks.
You’re the CEO of Dquadrant, a software development and IT services company.
What solutions have you developed? And what are the pros and cons of using Haskell/Plutus?
Our team has developed several solutions, from Plutus/Haskell blueprints for stablecoin and NFT marketplace in an early stage of Cardano to an 1:1 NFT Marketplace, Kuber api/library an PAB replacement, Kuber IDE — a browser-based development and testing environment for Plutus smart contracts, Mempool Explorer and Autonomous Agent Testing (currently in development).
Next to this we have been a development partner of IOG and Intersect for the following projects: Vasil Hard Fork, SECP256K1, Voltaire Voting App, Chang Hard Fork and more for which we did the quality assurance testing.
Pros Haskell/Plutus
- All boils down to Haskell/Plutus being a functional programming language
- Complex code can be broken down in small reusable functions (separation of concerns)
- Leading to improved code readability and maintenance
- Small functions are easier to test and debug leading to a higher quality code base
- Immutability of data ensures that functions don’t have unexpected side effects reducing chances of bugs during code maintenance
- Functions can be executed safely in parallel which adopts quiet well with the UTXO model
- Inherent parallelism allows for better utilization of hardware resources, thus improved performance and scalability
- Formal verification, proof that things works as intended
Cons Plutus/Haskell
- Functional programming languages are not mainstream, mainly teached in university setting due to high quality assurance of software needed for certain industries, for example chip design and the software that runs on it
- Pool of developers available is smaller than with mainstream languages, since the majority gets teached these languages without even having heard of functional programming languages and their advantages.
- Harder to adopt for developers with a mainstream development language background since it requires another way of thinking
- Less boilerplate code, i.e. examples available to get started from
Our team did the effort by learning Plutus/Haskell ourselves and without having a functional programming background.
What is Intersect and what role does it play in the Cardano ecosystem? And how are you involved?
Dquadrant is an Intersect Enterprise Member and participates in different working groups like the Open Source committee, Utility & Commercialization, Hard Fork, Governance and Technical Steering committee.
Intersect has several roles, coordinating (bringing people and projects together, defining the roadmap), maintaining, governance, commercialization and promotion of open source.
In my opinion the role of Intersect is very much underestimated and much needed to steer Cardano towards the future. Without Intersect it would quickly become chaos.
Great contribution. Any final thoughts? Where can people stay in touch?
We all need to work together and support each other, bundle our strengths to ensure that Cardano succeeds.
This can be done by supporting Intersect and contributing to one of the many working groups or by contributing to community initiatives and supporting long term ecosystem builders and contributors.
Most important in my opinion is that we find adoption outside of the crypto/speculative environment for sustainable future growth of Cardano.
We as the Cardano Community should not think in terms of short term personal gains but about creating long term value when creating solutions on Cardano.
That’s what we as Dquadrant and JUNO stake pool are striving for, but we can’t do this alone.
Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the people interviewed are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOG. Moreover, this content is for educational purposes, it doesn’t constitute financial advice.