Core Devs Are Ethereum's Scarcest Resource | Josh Davis - Ethereum Foundation

[Music] all right thanks for uh tuning in here uh my name is Josh Davis and I am I work with the ethereum foundation um and I want to talk a little bit today about uh the ethereum protocol fellowship and what it means to be an the arum core developer so uh yeah what what is a core developer well a core developer is somebody who works to maintain and upgrade the ethereum core protocol the core protocol is a is the thing that sort of like defines the what ethereum does it's the set of rules the specifications the things that govern the network and and the way that it the things are implemented so these are things like the specification uh the implementations of execution clients and consensus clients uh the different testing uh Frameworks as well as the uh community of research that um that happens things that the core protocol is not uh the core protocol is not a defi application it's not an nft aggregator it's none of the things that you that most of the users are really familiar with it is it is the thing that sort of underlies uh all the stuff that happens on top of it it is the computer to all of the software that that happens on top uh there is a lot of development that happens on ethereum uh according to Electric Capital uh there are around 200 2400 uh full-time developers that work on ethereum and uh around 7900 that do some kind of uh uh of commits into some repo that uh that has something to do with ethereum that being said only around 170 of them are core developers right so a very very small percentage of the people that work on ethereum work on the actual thing that makes everything work so just to reiterate a little bit uh things that that the app developers do they do high level development developing smart contracts using languages like solidity like Viper and any other languages that that develop smart contracts uh they're creating defi applications nfts uh all of these sorts of things um the the different uh apps daps on top of ethereum they they're required to provide some sort of security for their users they work in a competitive market driven uh profit driven uh uh way and a way to sort of frame this is that they they're building the like the fancy car that that that you know you see the Lambos or whatever to contrast that with what a core developer does a core developer is doing very low-level development uh building client software architecture using low-level languages like go like rust Java C++ these lowlevel system languages uh they're building the consensus clients and execution clients clients like G and prism and Lighthouse and all of these things that are required to to run a node or run a validator um uh yeah doing different bits of researches writing up eips for different upgrades that happen to the network uh the ethereum protocol provides security for all of the users so you know one of the common tropes is that you know uh all the things that are built on top of ethereum inherent the security of ethereum uh it's built in a very cooperative and Ethos driven way uh many any of the developers that work on the core protocol uh they they do so in in in a way that you know they don't make as much money as they probably could in in a place you know a different F Corporation where they certainly could could be hired so it's a very uh non nonprofit sort of ethos driven way uh and then in that same framework they are building the things that the cars are driving on so they build the the freeways and the interstates that these fancy Lambos get to drive on so why are core devs important outside of the reasons that I just mentioned uh just to yeah kind of reiterate they they maintain execution layer and consensus layer clients writing and implementing eips doing testing uh testing all the upgrades uh doing research to many many complex problems things that don't already have uh answers so there's a lot of a lot of research happening and generally just uh working to improve ethereum for the greater good without ethereum or without cevs ethereum does not exist in the way that it does now I'm sure many of you have probably seen this image this is the road map uh produced by metallic uh as of late last year he he quoted that around ethereum's around 55% finished at this point uh that may have been changed a little bit since then uh just to note that this this road map is not canon per se it is a a one person sort of uh overview of of where they see the the um protocol going so I want to talk to you about uh two different programs that that uh happen um in order to uh help people find their way into core development as I mentioned before a very small percentage of the amount of people that work on ethereum work on the core protocol and and many people uh desire to to to do this work but uh struggle to find out where to start to do it so these two programs are are meant to um help people find their way uh the first one that we'll talk about is called the uh ethereum protocol Fellowship study group uh it is a precursor to the ethereum protocol Fellowship which I'll talk about a little bit later uh the the protocol Fellowship study group is a program that aims to bridge the knowledge gap for people learning about the core protocol so this program uh is a new program and it started a couple of weeks ago it's a 10 week program uh again starting uh on the 19th of February and going all the way till the end of April uh the program consists of 1 to 2 90 minute classes per week taught by a current core developer or researcher um and these different classes will include um some pre-reading material in order to get you a person up to speed on some of the Lexicon and the nomenclature of of of the different topics and subject uh and then also some post class uh learning and study projects the there are two phases of this program the first phase which we're in currently is an overview phase so we're doing uh overviews of of ethereum itself uh the execution layer the consensus layer uh testing and uh and the road map generally um we've already had the intro to ethereum uh class as well as the execution layer class uh both of those and all of the rest of the uh classes are recorded so you can uh uh if you're interested in participating go back and and and watch those videos to kind of get caught up uh and I will display some QR codes up here uh a little bit later so that you can find those um yeah and then so that's phase one uh phase two is split into two different tracks so we'll have a research track and a development track and there will be two classes per week one for each of the tracks and you know they they are focused on on their you know sort of namesake so research will be focused on Research topics uh future upgrades that will be happening and development track will be focused more on uh kind of client architecture implementations uh eips things of that nature uh the program is open and permissionless meaning you do not need to apply to the program to participate you can just kind of jump in uh attend the classes uh join the conversation uh on Discord and yeah and be a part of that that course um and then finally one of the goals of the the program is to create a collaborative knowledge base so we have created a uh a Wiki based around uh core protocol development you can find it at EPF dowi and this is a collaborative knowledge base that is constantly growing right now it is actually very small and and in its infantile stages um the goal being through the program uh we will together build up this knowledge base so that people who are interested in doing this work can have a resource to to kind of help answer their questions um yeah uh some of the topics that are going to be covered during this course uh like I mentioned we've already had the course on the overall design of ethereum that was the introduction to ethereum uh then execution and consensus layer architecture specs and implementation testing meth methods and tools and then current research and the road map including uh future upgrades things like uh veral trees sharding uh me uh proof of stake improvements and um state in history expir so that is uh the study group and the other program I will mention is the ethereum protocol Fellowship uh we will be starting the fifth cohort of this program in May uh and this program is designed to make the process of actually becoming a core developer researcher or contributor easier uh as the founder of this program Piper miam likes to say uh the door to uh contributing to ethereum is hilariously wide open and this program is meant to sort of show you the way through that door uh a little quick brief history of this program again uh is start with started by Piper Mariam uh and when he created this program it was called the core developer Apprentice program uh he created it to bring more developers into the portal Network project uh and he ran two cohorts of that program uh the program is coordinated and funded by the ethereum foundation for the better uh betterment of all of the core protocol teams so this is client teams research teams um and things like that uh this program is designed to mimic the experience of being a core developer so uh you work in a very self-directed way you choose what it is that you want to work on what it is that you're passionate about um and we require you to write technical updates along the way um and sort of generally try to find your own way to the information and and the expertise that you're that you're seeking um this is the way that any current core developer works there's no one that sort of tells them what to do or how to do it uh it's really a self-directed um Endeavor and so this program is designed to sort of introduce you to to working in that manner if that's something that you don't necessarily uh have experience doing uh that being said we do offer mentorship uh through this program uh many of the current core developers people that work on client teams and research teams um offer their time and expertise to answer questions for people that that are you know getting roadblocked or Point them in the right direction but again the program is designed to to uh help you to figure out how to do things on your own um the coordination happens through GitHub our GitHub repo eprotocol DF fellows um and then through Discord uh we also host two week weekly meetings um during the duration of the cohort one of them being a sort of um standup meeting where we talk about the progress that we've made through the past week things that uh we've worked on or or things that are sort of holding us back and then another meeting uh which is the office hours meeting which can be a variety of different things uh where maybe we're presenting our our project proposals um or we do uh like a core developer amas uh this program is also operating permissionless meaning anyone can participate in the program uh however we do select um a around in between 15 and 30 uh official participants to the program which uh do receive a stien to help them uh spend their time working on this program uh so some of the benefits of the of the protocol Fellowship uh you get a nice introduction to the developer Community um as well as uh mentors and and and core developers uh we offer a semi structured process to sort of help you step through that hilariously Wide Open Door um you are able to work on what it is that you're passionate about uh you do receive a financial STP in and then generally you just get some experience uh doing open- Source work and contributing to to an open source project uh quickly about the fourth cohort uh the one that ended just uh in this last November uh we had over 400 applications for this program uh did 50 interviews and officially accepted 40 people uh we did have a number of people participate permissionless um and four of them were accepted into the official uh cohort meaning we did did offer them a stip in at that point so uh you know we admit that our application and and and judgment process is not perfect by any means and so we invite people to to you know jump in and prove us wrong and and we'll definitely uh recognize those efforts so over over the fourth cohort we had 32 different projects we had eight Mentor AMA calls uh 600 development updates and over 1,300 repo commits in the GitHub repo here is a quick list of some of the projects that the fellows in the fourth cohort worked on I am not going to go through each of these because it's they're all sort of quite in-depth in their own account U but you can uh see these projects in the repo um each fellow again has submitted these technical development updates through their process through the cohort and um you know so you can kind of read about their progress of of of of uh developing these projects creating these projects coming up with the ideas for these projects and and sort of where they ended up at the end of the cohort um so yeah there are three different phases of this uh program uh there's an onboarding phase where you get to meet your cohort and sort of do some very cursor overview of the of of ethereum itself this could kind of be uh looked at as a uh you know speedrun version of the study group uh and then we have uh the second phase which is the learning I don't know why that keeps happening uh the learning and project selection phase where you'll select a topic and deep dive into that topic learning as much as you can about it and then creating a a project proposal uh and then the majority of the program is focused on the project execution so um doing the work basically to to implement whatever it is that you've decided you want to work on uh and at the end of that project execution uh which happens to coincide with uh last year with uh def connect in Istanbul and this year we'll culminate in uh Devcon in uh southeast Asia uh we will do some project reports and and project presentations in person there uh and then at the end we also do our best to help you find uh your next step in in core development so whether that's joining a client team uh finding a grant from some organization uh or yeah just generally continuing your your efforts and contributing to ethereum uh so joining the EPF uh applications will uh these are some of the uh attributes that we're sort of looking for when we evaluate applications and some of the signals that uh that you know are good for for you to be accepted the fifth cohort is coming up we are going to be opening opening applications in May the program will start in June and run through mid November again culminating in an EPF day at Devcon in Southeast Asia uh if you're interested in participating you can either join our Google group mailing list which I will show a QR code for shortly uh look out for announcements on the ethereum.org blog uh Twitter Etc um join the the study group to familiarize yourself with the basics of ethereum uh and the current uh problems and solution spaces uh here are the Myriad of QR codes that you can utilize to find out more information uh the protocol studies GitHub the wiki the uh the Discord for the study group um the EPF Google Group which is sort of our mailing list of sorts and then the repo from the fourth cohort of the uh of the fellowship uh so yeah that's all I've got for you today uh if you're interested in becoming a core contributor I highly recommend that you check out these programs um and yeah thanks a lot