Blockchain
StarkNet, the Ethereum layer-2 platform has updated its Cairo coding languages to make Web3 development easier for developers.
Cointelegraph shared an announcement about Cairo 1.0’s upgrades. It is believed to be based on the Rust programming language. The overhaul intends to allow developers with general coding experience to begin building decentralized applications on StarkNet’s Ethereum layer-2 network.
StarkWare co-founder and president Eli Ben-Sasson told Cointelegraph that making layer-2 development more accessible to developers of varying backgrounds was the main reason for Cairo’s revamp:
“Primary drivers were safety and ease of use, and conducting the overhaul presented a terrific opportunity to remove the entry for developers with conventional language backgrounds.”
Technical specifications outlined in the Jan. 5 launch encompass a host of improvements to Cairo’s language. This includes improved syntax and language constructs as well as intuitive libraries, a holistic type system and robust code.
StarkNet highlights Sierra as the main addition to Cairo’s overhaul, which stands for Safe Intermediate Representation. Sierra acts as an intermediate representation layer between Cairo1.0 and Cairobyte code.
Sierra, explained Ben Sasson, is an essential part of ensuring that a permissionless network can be established. The upgrade enables reverted transactions to be included in StarkNet blocks, helping the protocol to avoid adding complex ‘crypto-economic mechanisms.’
Similar: StarkNet makes Cairo 2.0 open source as a first step towards community control
Ben Sasson said that Sierra will allow StarkNet to ‘inherit the full censorship-resistance of Ethereum’ and mainly protects against Sequencer Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.
Cointelegraph reported previously that Ben-Sasson, along with other computer scientists, pioneered ZK-STARK encryption. Zero-Knowledge Scalable, Transparent Arguments of Knowledge (ZK-STARK) is a proof system that encrypts transaction data and verifies it to ensure security, scaleability, and resistance to quantum computing.
StarkNet claims Cairo is fourth in smart contract languages by total value locked. It hosts the largest number of applications, processing over 300 million transactions and is responsible for 90 million NFTs. Additionally, it facilitates trades on Ethereum worth $790 millions.