Enhancing Reliability in Polkadot by Pierre Aubert

At the Polkadot Decoded 2024 conference, Pierre Aubert, a key figure in the Polkadot ecosystem, delivered an insightful talk titled “Can you rely on Polkadot?” Aubert’s presentation focused on the essential aspects of improving the reliability of Polkadot, emphasizing the importance of building trust and ensuring consistent performance.

Understanding the Challenges of Polkadot

Aubert began by acknowledging the varied opinions about Polkadot’s complexity and usability. While some developers appreciate its advanced technical features, others find the platform overly complicated and challenging to navigate. This spectrum of opinions highlights the need for Polkadot to balance its innovative capabilities with ease of use.

Key Areas for Improvement

Aubert outlined several key areas where Polkadot must improve to enhance its reliability:

1. Security Enhancements:

• Unilateral Access: Aubert stressed the importance of removing unilateral access to prevent any single individual from making significant changes to the network. Implementing a multi-person approval system would reduce the risk of malicious actions.
• Dependency Management: The vast number of dependencies in Polkadot’s codebase poses a security risk. Aubert proposed reducing these dependencies to ensure greater control and stability.

2. Defining and Enforcing Reliability:

• Aubert highlighted the lack of a clear definition of what constitutes reliability for Polkadot and Kusama. Establishing a Service Level Objective (SLO) would provide a benchmark for measuring and improving performance.
• Breaking APIs and Compatibility: To strike a balance between developer velocity and system stability, Aubert suggested conducting surveys to understand user needs and preferences for maintaining compatibility and implementing changes.

3. Scalability and Performance:

• Elastic Scaling: The introduction of elastic scaling in the second half of 2024 aims to accommodate higher transaction volumes and improve overall performance.
• Educating Users: Aubert emphasized the importance of educating users about when they can read blocks and how to optimize their usage to enhance scalability.

4. Usability and Developer Experience:

• Comprehensive SDKs: Aubert recognized the need for SDKs in multiple languages, including Java and C++, to cater to a broader range of developers. Providing these tools would make Polkadot more accessible and attractive to developers from diverse backgrounds.
• Simplifying Data Access: Improving APIs to offer more user-friendly and abstracted access to blockchain data would streamline the development process and reduce the complexity of building applications on Polkadot.

Polkadot Future Initiatives

Aubert also discussed several future initiatives aimed at improving Polkadot’s reliability and usability:

1. Omni Node: The development of the Omni Node aims to simplify the infrastructure requirements for building parachains, allowing developers to focus on their core applications without worrying about maintaining extensive infrastructure.
2. Plaza: Aubert introduced Polkadot Plaza, a proposed system parachain that combines asset management with EVM support. This initiative seeks to attract more developers by providing a familiar and easier-to-use environment, similar to Layer 2 solutions on Ethereum.
3. Jam Project: The Jam project, an ambitious new initiative, aims to improve scalability and performance while maintaining compatibility with existing Polkadot infrastructure. Aubert assured developers that Parity would continue to support parachains for the foreseeable future, alleviating concerns about forced migrations.

Conclusion

Pierre Aubert’s presentation at Polkadot Decoded 2024 highlighted the critical importance of reliability in building trust within the Polkadot ecosystem. By addressing security vulnerabilities, defining clear reliability standards, improving scalability, and enhancing usability, Polkadot aims to provide a robust and dependable platform for developers and users alike. These incremental improvements, combined with ambitious future initiatives, position Polkadot as a leading contender in the evolving landscape of blockchain technology.