I met Christian during the PBA HK cohort, and I can say, that he’s truly remarkable, I can see this tool as a common tool for the Polkadot ecosystem, accelerating the learning curve when it comes to Substrate_ and Frame, and this type of tool helps leverage the power of Polkadot not only on the inside but outside too thanks to all the velocity for developers to code faster and deliver a usable product or specific tool for the ecosystem.
Also, the team looks solid, I had the pleasure as well of meeting Martin at the PBA, and he’s well suited for the role, as I can see, the product has a great future.
Hey Christian! This is a very exciting idea indeed. At EasyA, we see first hand the difficulties newcomers to the ecosystem face when learning about Substrate, Ink! etc. The Polkadot content we’ve developed in the EasyA app is an extremely powerful way to inspire developers, and this would be another tool we could share with developers on their EasyA Polkadot learning journey. It would be exciting to see how your dAppForge proposal could be leveraged in hackathons too as a way to support developers!
Christian’s project directly addresses the complexities of Rust, Ink, and Substrate, aiming to lower the entry barriers for developers significantly. My conviction in dAppForge’s potential is rooted in my professional relationship with the project’s founder and my experiences trying to learn about Polkadot throughout PBA HK. This connection has provided me with a firsthand understanding of the project’s vision and goals, reinforcing my belief in its capacity to foster innovation within the Polkadot community.
I have recommended dAppForge to two of the top universities in Hong Kong, aiming to broaden its impact and facilitate its integration into academic research and development programs. This endorsement stems from dAppForge’s crucial role in expanding Polkadot’s reach and adoption by equipping developers with the tools they need to build and deploy cutting-edge dApps and parachains efficiently.
Chris showcased exceptional dedication and innovation with dAppForge during our time at PBA in Hong Kong. dAppForge’s focus on simplifying the development within Polkadot is crucial. Excited to see how it streamlines development and lowers barriers for newcomers. Great work, Chris!
Chris is a longstanding devoted member of the Polkadot and Moonbeam community. He has proven his passion and commitment by completing the PBA and he has refined dApp forge to be a promising and needed benefit to the developer community. I can’t wait to see dApp forge grow and make substantial contributions to making developers’ lives easier!
Firstly, congratulations on completing the Polkadot Blockchain Academy with distinction! Having been in software development for over a decade, I’ve long believed that approximately 50% of positions in this field doesn’t quite make sense, for various reasons (a lengthy topic for another time). Over the years, I’ve noticed easily reproducible patterns in programming languages like JVM-based and JavaScript and predicted that my days personally as software engineer in the field are counted. In these domains, I’ve gained substantial experience and identified several systemic areas for improvement and streamlining without compromising economic output.
While I lack so wide experience in Rust/Substrate, and thus don’t have a strong opinion about AI in Rust-based projects, my intuition suggests there might be opportunities to lower barriers for new developers entering the Polkadot ecosystem.
Here are a couple of suggestions:
Ensure the tool is user-friendly.
Facilitate easy execution of upgrades (anticipating frequent updates).
Share proof of concept as early as possible.
Wishing you the best of luck on your venture! Share what Github’s repository I should give a star and setup notification about new release
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Chris since being on the Polkadot Relayers program together last year. His idea of an AI plugin for Polkadot SDK developers is something we wished we had during our development journey. This will make it much easier for developers to write the code for innovative chains and dApps that will bring immeasurable value to ecosystem. The Xcavate team full supports this initiative.
I met Christian at the PBA in Hong Kong and we immediately became friends. He more than anyone else got the best from PBA accepting feedback and evolving his project.
I believe there is a strong appetite for a solution like DAppForge. The ecosystem needs it and the developers would pay for it. The community has a pain and this solution could reduce it. Easy!
However, for the technical aspect, I believe there are challenges but I’m not an expert on AI, so I cannot judge the full feasibility of the project. Anyway, even if the tool will only provide a portion of the complete capacity, it would be a huge win for the ecosystem because today there is almost nothing to help developers in this market niche.
I would love to see this project funded because it answers a need and because Christian is a reliable person able to deliver. There is a chance that he will reduce the scope of the AI exposition for code generation in favour of other features such as auto-completion, but these are just technical details that I’m sure Chris can deal with.
I know Chris via the Moonbeam developer community. A very respectable and smart guy
I believe his project dAppForge can become a huge Polkadot catalyst in enhancing both developer and user adoption
If I may add my 2 cents I would summarise as a developer few really painful points like these:
Personally I have found that while Polkadot, Substrate, ink! and few parachains documentation is really good, nevertheless there is a huge volume of information and an AI agent could facilitate finding easy what I need. Some parachains have implemented their own AI agents so dAppForge could also have direct connection to these.
Other parachains have more limited documentation and/or certain important specs such as chain storage values, XCM asset specs (multilocations), could be facilitated further via AI
Installing an environment for ink! development is much better these days, yet it still includes a dozen steps. Despite documentation being good, for any new developer that wants to be in a position to code in ink!, several steps (many times system dependant) have to take place from choosing the correct latest rust library to compiling the appropriate Substrate-Contracts node. These steps (and tools like Swanky) can be further enhanced via an AI chatbot hand holding.
In my opinion I would spend a lot of time on the Solidity vs ink! Docs e.g. ink! vs. Solidity | ink! documentation . It is crystal clear that there are many solidity developers. Using AI, the appropriate documentation and code examples can be shown, easing a Solidity’s developer expansion/transition to ink! smart contracts
Connectivity of dAppForge to
basic code boilerplates from existing community repos (e.g. XCM) and libraries e.g. Chopsticks,
to a Remix type of online ink! IDE (which I believe is currently under development) e.g. Polkadot/Substrate Portal… and jsfiddle
substrate.stackexchange
can complete the loop from installing the appropriate environment to learning ink! (from scratch or from Solidity transitioning), to Substrate all within the same webpage.
This is exactly the type of innovation we need in the ecosystem right now. Substrate is not easy to get to grips with and something like this could be the perfect tool to help ease the onboarding process for new developers. I look forward to tracking the progress of this project, good luck!
Is great to see ideas like this one, everything on the direction to improve Developer Experience will help to see more applications being build on Polkadot.
We got some cool insights from a survey with ink! developers, it might be interesting for you to take a look at the results: Polkadot Smart Contract Developer Survey
I have just completed the fourth wave of the PBA developer track in Hong Kong, and both myself and other students have encountered challenges studying these technologies.
Polkadot is an extremely interesting and powerful technological ecosystem. However, it can be challenging for newcomers to learn. Exploring solutions like this, which use AI to boost the learning process, can be very useful for the development of the ecosystem and can contribute positively to its growth.
In my opinion, it is a use case that should be explored. Innovation needs someone who builds crazy stuff, and learning fast is a requirement to not fall behind the super-fast pace of work in which we live
Absolutely thrilled to see what Chris is making with dAppForge in the Polkadot ecosystem! Having crossed paths with Chris at the Polkadot Blockchain Academy, I can say that his depth of knowledge and dedication have always stood out. His achievement at the Polkadot Blockchain Academy is a testament to his commitment. His leadership skills will definitely be key to the success of the project.
Starting my journey with Substrate has been both exciting and challenging. As a developer diving into this space, I’m really looking forward to tools that would enable me to achieve more in the same timeframe. And this application is tailored to do exactly that. I am thrilled about it and would be happy to be one of the first testers of dAppForge.
As a developer in the Substrate ecosystem, I am often overwhelmed by the various updates to Substrate versions and dependencies. I am really looking forward to Christian’s dAppForge tool coming out soon to help us developers solve problems!
Hello everyone.
It’s clear that our ecosystem needs to attract more and more developers. We’re often cited as the No. 1 ecosystem after ETH in terms of active developers. I’m convinced that a project like dAppForge can make it easier to onboard developers on PolkadotSDK.
Also, as a 4th cohort PBA student, I could see how competent and determined @Chris_Nifty was to bring this project to fruition. I also really appreciate his constant quest for feedback.
In my humble opinion, this is a project to support as part of DF!
I personally find the intersection of using LLMs and Substrate very interesting - there is surely a lot of boilerplate within FRAME that can be taken care of with a Substrate-like Copilot.
With Coretime coming up, I would expect that Substrate will also naturally get a lot more attention from developers wishing to utilize cores on Polkadot, meaning DX will become more of a priority.
What I would like to see, as a result of this, is something which can easily answer questions related to the codebase - IMHO would save a lot of documentation time in some cases!
