Recap: IOHK Monthly Cardano Development Updates - 28/05/2020
(written by @Eric_Czuleger)
On May 28th 2020 Tim Harrison, sat down with product director for Cardano Aparna Jue to discuss the latest developments in the roll out of the Haskell Shelley testnets. They are joined by Haskell engineer Kevin Hammond to gain some insight into how the initial pioneer phase has gone and what the future holds for the testnets. Hyperlinks and timecodes in relation to key questions have been placed at the bottom of the document for your convenience.
Mounting integrations
There has been a great deal of development in separate workstreams, but this particular update will focus on the roll out of Shelley. There is a virtual summit forthcoming and we will be discussing other key pillars like tokens, digital IDs, and Daedalus in future updates. For now, it is important to give a high level update of what has been happening recently.
We are on track for hardware integration of Daedalus with ledger. That comes from our partner Vacuum Labs. This will be covered in a video from Darko. The Goguen workstream is also progressing nicely. In all of our current endeavors, IOHK is building to specification while keeping the user community in mind.
When building we are asking questions about ease of use, competition, cost, and investigating every possible area to consider. There is also deeper research, scope, and functionality which we are attempting to gather testing and feedback on. Our production and delivery roadmaps will begin to look similar in this build-test-iterate model. The ‘friends and family testnet’ is one example of this.
Team dedication
In terms of our people we began having dedicated teams working towards the same goal posts. This initial Haskell Shelley testnet began with the so-called pioneers. This was focused around user acceptance testing. This is important to building relevant products. Flight was an example of building something that allowed us to collect organized feedback. While research is great, testing in real world circumstances with real users is vital.
The ITN was a good example of this kind of testing. Stakepool operators needed to interact with the ITN as if they were beginning a real business. We therefore invited those individuals over to become pioneers on the Haskell Shelley testnet. This has been abundantly successful. We have had 168 connections to the testnet. 90 percent of expected blocks are being produced. We had 2 bugs in the last few days and we understand that the velocity in development is going quite well. Needless to say we are excited about where the Haskell Shelley testnets are taking us.
Aparna Jue, Product Director for Cardano
7:33 What has the process of working through exercises been like with the pioneers?
8:33 We have done various exercises, what have we just launched?
9:30 What are some high level bugs we’ve found along the way?
11:49 What has gone well about working with the pioneers?
14:48 What was the ask on behalf of stake pool operators in terms of parameters?
21:12 How will rewards be determined on the mainnet?
21:50 Can you talk about saturation?
Brittany, Pioneer stake pool operator with [PINK]
24:38 How did you become involved in Cardano?
25:48 How have you found the exercises?
28:55 Can you talk about your plans for your stake pool?
29:40 How would you recommend someone get involved in the space?
Peyton, Pioneer stake pool operator with [PEYAD]
27:00 Can you introduce yourself to our community?
27:37 What has your experience working with the Haskell Shelley testnet?
28:26 How has being a mentor been?
Charles Hoskinson, CEO of IOHK
32:48 What do these conversations with pioneers mean to you?
35:06 On June 9th the Haskell Shelley testnet will open for everyone who wants to run a stakepool.
35:26 On June 16th, all of Shelley will be visible together.
35:55 On June 23rd, the hard fork combinator test will begin.
36:20: On June 30th we will ship Shelley.
37:41 On August 3rd, rewards from the ITN can be claimed.
37:55 On August 18th stake pool operators can begin taking over the system.
40:40 What has taking the road less traveled meant for Cardano?
41:00 Who is the special guest for the launch of Shelley?
43:20 When will the virtual summit be?
45:00 What has the relationship with McCann given IOHK and Cardano.org?