- Ethereum’s former developer criticizes the lack of clear vision, hindering EVM progress.
- Ethereum’s ossification could lead to stagnation and eventual decline.
- Complexity should be tackled with better engineering, not halted progress.
A former Ethereum developer, Hari, has voiced concerns over the network’s development trajectory, citing an absence of a clear and unified vision. According to him, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) has faced repeated setbacks due to internal disagreements on proposed changes.
He pointed out that during the last half decade, only one change, transient storage, came close to being enacted but never succeeded. That, he contends, is indicative of a broader issue where disagreement stifles upgrades that are needed.
Hari cautioned that without movement towards action-oriented decisions, Ethereum is at risk of ossification, where no new changes are made. He feels that stagnation would eventually be the demise of the network.
Instead of embracing complexity as something unavoidable in the growth context, he advocates for more spending on testing, engineering, and security.
He also proposed quarterly hard forks to ensure continuous improvement. ETH’s future depends on being willing to make difficult decisions and remaining committed to meaningful upgrades, he said.
EOF Proposal Sparks Debate
Hari’s remarks came in response to concerns raised by blockchain consultant Pascal Caversaccio, also known as pcaversaccio, regarding Ethereum’s increasing complexity.
Caversaccio named the proposal EOF 82 which introduces many changes to the EVM with new semantics of creation of contracts and changes to some opcodes. In his opinion, while the proposal attempts to optimize the efficiency of the EVM, it is too complex to implement and causes unnecessary risk.
Rather than embracing EOF, he proposed that Ethereum would be able to derive the same advantages through less complex and less intrusive updates.
He proposed options including altering compiler rules, improving bytecode validation, and modifying opcode semantics without altering the EVM architecture at its core.
This would prevent too many interruptions but would boost Ethereum’s functionality, he claims. But such customized modifications would have to be executed through collaborative efforts of the developer community.
Ethereum Faces Tough Choice
Ethereum must now choose if it should implement the aggressive but complex EOF proposal or follow a more incremental approach. Critics of EOF are worried that it would introduce unintended security vulnerabilities, increase maintenance overheads, and complicate tooling.
Additionally, the continuous change of the proposal has been challenging for developers to keep up with, making them question the long-term sustainability of it.
The debate is indicative of Ethereum’s general struggle to reconcile progress with stability. Ossification is a major risk, but unregulated complexity also threatens to slow progress.
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