EthPM ETHPrize Bounty (ECF)

[gnidan]

Overview

This issues represents completed work for the ECF portion of the ETHPrize Bounty. An introduction to this bounty can be found on the ETHPrize homepage. The complete initial requirements for this project are available in EthPM v2 – Project Requirements Specification.

This portion is separated as the first main category of work, corresponding to the revision of the EthPM Package Manifest Specification, its publication as an EIP standards draft, and the expansion of related documentation around this standard and the project at large.

Contents

• Fix known limitations/inadequacies:
  • Remove restriction to IPFS storage networks, allowing any content-addressable storage network
  • Improve bytecode linking semantics for purposes of generation and consumption
  • Introduce strictness requirements for data format representation (no whitespace, sorted keys)
  • Generalize compiler settings to support arbitrary high-level languages
• Expand on Project Rationale (Use Cases) and improve infrastructure for presenting a series of well-documented package examples, each reflecting up-to-date Solidity code/best practices
• Establish infrastructure for maintaining the specification as a living standard across multiple formats:
  • Add processes to facilitate reliable document consistency and accessibility (internal references, term glossary, generated code examples, etc.)
  • Add continuous integration system for ensuring quality of changes to specification (automated previews, internal consistency checks)
  • Add continuous deployment system to automatically publish community-approved changes
  • Implement system for the generation of EIP-compatible Markdown, to support ongoing revisions while maintaining that the Draft EIP stays up to date with the long-form documentation site
• Publish revised formal specification of package manifest format
• Publish revised natural language description of package manifest format
• Publish EIP-1123: Revised Ethereum Smart Contract Packaging Standard draft document

Goals / Impact

• Create a usable specification that supports broad adoption
• Improve project accessibility to assist members of the Ethereum software development community in understanding what EthPM is and what problems it hopes to solve
• Provide tools developers with a reliable format that allows definition of software packages to meet Ethereum-specific needs
• Establish processes for the continued support of this project through ongoing community efforts, as new best-practices emerge and limitations discovered