We are excited to announce the open sourcing of our first Koinos repository which is for Koinos Types! You can find that repo here: https://github.com/koinos/koinos-types.
Koinos Types is like the Rosetta Stone for blockchain data structures. It allows programs written in different languages to talk to one another in a simple and unified way by giving them access to the same objects (the “building blocks” of modern programming languages). Koinos types allows for the interpretation of Koinos (i.e. blockchain) data structures in practically any programming language which will be extremely useful for the development of blockchain-related microservices, clients, and smart contracts. The program uses an IDL (Interface Definition Language) to generate the corresponding API in any supported language.
To learn more about Koinos Types, and how it relates to another piece of open source software called RabbitMQ to dramatically improve the developer experience on Koinos, check out the following video with Koinos Group co-founder and Koinos blockchain architect, Steve Gerbino. Steve uses the example of Splinterlands to explain how great application developers will be able to leverage Koinos to improve their applications and decrease their costs.
Koinos Types is a cross-language serialization framework that supports both JSON and binary serialization. It’s similar to Google’s Protocol Buffers except Koinos Types always serializes data in the same way, which is a requirement for blockchain applications. We call this “canonical serialization,” and it’s critical for use in a blockchain-based stack. Since no existing cross-language serialization frameworks had canonical serialization, we had to build Koinos Types ourselves, but we are excited to now share it with the world for free under an open source license.
In short, Koinos Types actually solves a number of problems. It helps us add multi-language support to Koinos more generally (including for smart contracts), it enables microservices to communicate with one another, and it makes it easier to develop and update client-libraries. Obviously when Koinos mainnet launches it won’t have all of the nifty tools that other blockchains have which is why it is critical to ensure that Koinos can acquire those tools at a more rapid rate so that it can not only catch up to older protocols, but ultimately outpace them. Koinos Types are key to accomplishing that objective.
Right now Koinos Types only has support for C++ and Go, which is where you come in. Because Koinos Types is now open source, any developer can get in there and add support for the programming language they know and love. Not only will this make it easier for them to develop microservices, clients, and smart contracts to power their free-to-use dApp, it will also help every other developer interested in leveraging Koinos to build amazing decentralized applications using the programming languages that they already know and love.
Not only that, but as blockchains built on microservice architectures become more common (Koinos is the first ever), we suspect that Koinos Types will add value to even more projects than just Koinos. So if you believe in the potential for blockchain technology to create a feature that is more secure, more private, and more abundant, then check out Koinos Types and see if you (or someone you know) can help add support for new languages!
If you’d like to learn more about Koinos, head on over to koinos.io and if you found this content interesting or informative, please follow and share.
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