The thought behind the Vyper Challenge was to develop one thing that was designed on the language stage to naturally exhibit a excessive diploma of security. The undertaking was initially authored by Vitalik as a proof-of-concept alternative for Serpent, its predecessor, however shortly after its creation Vyper discovered itself with out a devoted maintainer. Fortunately, there have been enthusiastic neighborhood members that took up the torch and continued growth of the undertaking, and we (the EF Python Staff) turned re-involved within the undertaking 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 primary take-aways.
- There are a number of severe bugs within the Vyper compiler.
- The codebase has a excessive stage of technical debt which can make addressing these points complicated.
For the reason that current Python-based Vyper implementation shouldn’t be but manufacturing prepared, it has been moved out of the ethereum github group into its personal group: vyperlang. The prevailing maintainers are planning to handle the problems independently as soon as once more, however we are going to proceed to observe the undertaking intently right here: > https://github.com/vyperlang/vyper
In the meantime, our staff continues work on a Rust-based compiler in tandem. Extra on that under, however first, right here’s a bit extra on how we obtained to the place we’re right this moment.
Over the course of this yr we labored with the undertaking maintainers to deal with bettering the code high quality and structure of the undertaking. After a number of months of labor we have been skeptical that the python codebase was prone to ship on the concept that Vyper promised. The codebase contained a major quantity of technical and architectural debt, and from our perspective it did not seem to be the prevailing maintainers have been centered on fixing this.
Exploring Rust
Earlier this yr in August, we explored producing a model of the Vyper compiler constructed on basically completely different structure. The purpose was to write down a compiler in Rust that leverages the prevailing 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 will be simply compiled to WASM, making the compiler rather more transportable than one primarily based in Python. By constructing on prime of YUL we’d get the EVM and EWASM compilation without spending a dime, solely requiring the compiler to deal with the transformation from a Vyper AST to YUL.
We have been sufficiently far together with our Rust primarily based Vyper compiler when the Python Vyper audit was launched, and have been assured within the directionl. The audit confirmed many considerations across the python codebase and helped to validate the route we have taken.
The work continues
That mentioned, the maintainers of the Python Vyper codebase do intend to proceed with the undertaking. Whereas we don’t plan to have continued involvement within the python codebase, we want them luck but in addition needed to make observe of current occasions to keep away from inadvertently signalling that the undertaking 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 can 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 maintain everybody updated because the undertaking strikes ahead.
