The concept behind the Vyper Undertaking 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 and not using a devoted maintainer. Fortunately, there have been enthusiastic neighborhood members that took up the torch and continued improvement of the undertaking, and we (the EF Python Group) 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 workforce on the Python-based Vyper compiler. You possibly can learn the outcomes for your self right here.
We encourage you to learn the report, nonetheless, there are two primary take-aways.
- There are a number of critical bugs within the Vyper compiler.
- The codebase has a excessive stage of technical debt which is able to 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 present maintainers are planning to deal with 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 workforce continues work on a Rust-based compiler in tandem. Extra on that under, however first, right here’s a bit extra on how we received to the place we’re right now.
Over the course of this yr we labored with the undertaking maintainers to concentrate on bettering the code high quality and structure of the undertaking. After a number of months of labor we had been skeptical that the python codebase was more likely 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 appear to be the prevailing 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 prevailing work by the Solidity workforce and makes use of the YUL intermediate illustration to permit us to focus on EVM or EWASM throughout compilation. A Rust primarily based compiler could 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 at no 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 issues across the python codebase and helped to validate the path 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 additionally wished to make word 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 the direction of constructing a compiler written in Rust to ship on the unique concept of Vyper, and the Python effort which is able to work independently towards the identical targets within the Python codebase. We’re hopeful that we will proceed working collectively in the direction of a single “Vyper” with a number of implementations, and we’ll maintain everybody updated because the undertaking strikes ahead.
