The concept behind the Vyper Challenge was to develop one thing that was designed on the language degree to naturally exhibit a excessive diploma of security. The challenge was initially authored by Vitalik as a proof-of-concept alternative for Serpent, its predecessor, however shortly after its creation Vyper discovered itself and not using a devoted maintainer. Fortunately, there have been enthusiastic neighborhood members that took up the torch and continued growth of the challenge, and we (the EF Python Workforce) turned re-involved within the challenge for a while earlier this yr.
This fall, a preliminary safety audit was carried out by the Consensys Diligence staff on the Python-based Vyper compiler. You can read the results for yourself here.
We encourage you to learn the report, nevertheless, there are two principal take-aways.
- There are a number of critical bugs within the Vyper compiler.
- The codebase has a excessive degree of technical debt which is able to make addressing these points advanced.
For the reason that current Python-based Vyper implementation isn’t but manufacturing prepared, it has been moved out of the ethereum github group into its personal group: vyperlang. The present maintainers are planning to deal with the problems independently as soon as once more, however we are going to proceed to observe the challenge carefully right here: > https://github.com/vyperlang/vyper
In the meantime, our staff continues work on a Rust-based compiler in tandem. Extra on that beneath, however first, right here’s a bit extra on how we obtained to the place we’re at the moment.
Over the course of this yr we labored with the challenge maintainers to concentrate on bettering the code high quality and structure of the challenge. After a couple of months of labor we had been skeptical that the python codebase was prone to ship on the concept Vyper promised. The codebase contained a major quantity of technical and architectural debt, and from our perspective it did not seem to be the present maintainers had been centered on fixing this.
Exploring Rust
Earlier this yr in August, we explored producing a model of the Vyper compiler constructed on essentially totally different structure. The purpose was to jot down a compiler in Rust that leverages the present work by the Solidity staff and makes use of the YUL intermediate illustration to permit us to focus on EVM or EWASM throughout compilation. A Rust primarily based compiler might be simply compiled to WASM, making the compiler far more transportable than one primarily based in Python. By constructing on prime of YUL we might get the EVM and EWASM compilation without cost, solely requiring the compiler to deal with the transformation from a Vyper AST to YUL.
We had been sufficiently far together with our Rust primarily based Vyper compiler when the Python Vyper audit was launched, and had been assured within the directionl. The audit confirmed many considerations across the python codebase and helped to validate the course we have taken.
The work continues
That stated, the maintainers of the Python Vyper codebase do intend to proceed with the challenge. Whereas we don’t plan to have continued involvement within the python codebase, we want them luck but additionally wished to make be aware of current occasions to keep away from inadvertently signalling that the challenge was protected to make use of.
So at current there are at present two “Vyper” compilers: The EF-supported work in direction of constructing a compiler written in Rust to ship on the unique thought of Vyper, and the Python effort which is able to work independently towards the identical objectives within the Python codebase. We’re hopeful that we are able to proceed working collectively in direction of a single “Vyper” with a number of implementations, and we’ll hold everybody updated because the challenge strikes ahead.
