This blog series serves to highlight the work and motivations of developers, users and researchers collaborating on Hyperledger’s projects. Next up is Jonas Snellinckx from TheLedger. Let’s see what he has to say!
What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain?
Blockchain isn’t like any other technology, it isn’t well researched, and it sure isn’t well documented. But let this not scare you. You are a pioneer in the era of a new internet.
Whether you have a computer science background or not, blockchain is a technology you want to get started with. I would not recommend focusing all your resources on one technology. Everything is still early, and there are so many good concepts and technologies out there. Just wait and follow the market. New technologies will arise, so there’s no reason to get tunnel vision and use one technology for all. This is not Java.
What project in Hyperledger are you working on? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?
I’m currently working at TheLedger developing prototypes on mostly Hyperledger Fabric, but also BigchainDB. We are a consultancy firm, mostly doing prototypes, which means I’m fortunate enough to cycle through projects and learn new things at a quick pace. I have worked on numerous prototypes from KYC to competencies on the blockchain to a hackathon solution for diamond invoice financing to even a self-conscious house. You can learn all about our adventures and other Hyperledger Fabric related posts here: https://medium.com/wearetheledger.
I’m also maintainer of some boilerplates and tools for the Hyperledger Fabric network. You can find all our tools on https://github.com/wearetheledger , we have a bunch. We created a network boilerplate, backend boilerplate using nestjs and typescript, node utils to write nodejs chaincode at lightning speed and a mockstub to test nodejs chaincode. We vastly improved our workflow by using these tools, so I highly recommend looking at these.
What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?
I think Hyperledger Indy is a big one, I think self-sovereign identity will be more important in the future. Just overall making the projects more mature and listening to the needs of the community. I think Fabric is doing this pretty well already.
As Hyperledger’s incubated projects start maturing and hit 1.0s and beyond, what are the most interesting technologies, apps, or use cases coming out as a result from your perspective?
We recently talked about this at the office. Hyperledger Indy and Self-Sovereign Identity will be a big part once we get to integrate this with Hyperledger Fabric. There’s still some work to this, but this has so much potential. Blockchain is one thing, but SSI will have a whole other meaning to the ecosystem. This will also help some GDPR related issues.
What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?
I think I’m not the only developer who’s lazy. At school they told us a developer should be like this. This is why it frustrates me one has to do so much duplicate work to submit forms to difference instances for example. I just hope we get rid of this all this duplicate paperwork and do something useful with this saved time.
Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in 5 years?
I don’t think we can even imagine the impact of blockchain in 5 years. There’s so many awesome ideas, and most of them are currently only in their concept phase. We’ll have to wait until things mature.