Conversation with Sui Developer Relations Manager: How to start developing on Sui from scratch?

Conversation with Sui Dev Rel Manager: How to start developing on Sui from scratch?

In this article, Brian Hennessey-Hsieh, the developer relations lead at Sui, talks about open source, decentralization, and developer success. How does his team support developers in using Sui and achieving success? How can developers get official support?

Q: Tell us about your journey into blockchain.

A: I’ve been working in the open source field for over 20 years since I graduated from graduate school, starting with GCC, Linux, and all the way to cloud computing, such as OpenStack.

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I have always been passionate about open source. What is fascinating is that people will work on it even if there is no reward, and even collaborate globally. I gradually came to believe that open collaboration and transparency are key to software development.

Since I got my PhD, I’ve been trying to find a job in the open source field, but couldn’t find any full-time work until I joined Uber in 2017. I created the Uber Open Source Office and worked there for four years before Coinbase contacted me. Before talking to the Coinbase Cloud team, I had been skeptical of the crypto industry but was very interested in the technology.

As a computer science PhD, technology naturally appealed to me. Distributed systems, cryptography, programming languages, and everything put together, it’s very appealing from a technical standpoint. I’ve been studying blockchain, trying to understand the technology, use cases, and how people use it to solve real-world problems, but I wasn’t sure whether to work full-time in blockchain.

I’ve been declining, but I’m interested in Coinbase Cloud because it’s an infrastructure company that has nothing to do with cryptocurrency. It’s providing infrastructure to help people be more productive and solve their problems. So I decided to join, and that’s how I started my formal journey into web3. Later, I came to Mysten Labs and now I’m the developer relations lead at Sui Foundation.

Q: How have you viewed this industry since joining?

A: I have three different views of web3.

First is my work, which is about helping to establish more open collaboration and governance, because fundamentally we need to decentralize these systems, and we need to implement principles of power decentralization, just like an open source project. A group of people created this project, and now we have to figure out how to educate the community to participate, not just in how they participate, but also in knowledge that allows them to make meaningful contributions.

The second point is our technology. Sui is very new, but we know we have reliable technology, but there still exists the question of how to explain to people what this technology is and how they can use it to solve their problems. Rather than thinking about web3 technology as it’s often discussed today, we need to break it down like any technology. Here are the characteristics of this technology, consider if it solves a problem you have, if it does, use it, if it doesn’t make sense, find something else.

The last point of view is the applications and current use cases, some of which make sense to me, and some of which don’t, but I think this breadth validates the value of the technology. I don’t know how long it will take to be widely adopted and become the backbone of the new internet, but I believe it will happen, and the longer I stay in this industry, the more I believe that.

Q: For those who may not be familiar with the concept of Layer 1 blockchain developer relations, can you share more about your team and what you do?

A: Personally, I think L1 developer relations is about decentralization and interaction with developers, fundamentally the decentralization part is open source, part is open collaboration, part is open governance. At the beginning of L1, you need a group of people to ensure the principles and methods of community building, how do we interact with developers? How do we interact with the community and empower the community? How do we accept contributions?

As an example of the improvement proposal process, how do we ensure it’s fair and inclusive while also ensuring it’s the best technical choice? The reality is, you don’t have a lot of contributors who understand this technology on day one, how do you bring them in and educate them so that they can ultimately make more meaningful contributions?

We draw a lot of principles from the open source world, including open collaboration, transparency, meritocracy, inclusiveness, and community. In a sense, I think open source powers web3, and web3 disrupts the open source way.

Q: What attracts developers to using web3 and how can they succeed?

A: The initial group of developers on the Sui Network are visionary tech experts, true believers, who are pushing the industry forward. They’ve been through many cycles in the industry, learning, failing, and succeeding, and have ideas on how to improve web3 and Sui.

This is a technology, like any other technology, it has its pros and cons. Instead of thinking about what attracts developers to using web3, we need to think about how to present the technology so that developers can see it as a way to solve problems. This has nothing to do with web2 or web3. We make sure we teach people the right way, and once we can do that, we’ll attract developers just like we evaluate other technologies.

Q: If a developer is in the middle of their career and want to transition to building on Sui, how should they get started?

A: First, get a basic understanding of the underlying theory involved, distributed systems, cryptography, and a basic understanding of different programming languages, otherwise, you may end up designing or creating something that doesn’t really fit the system.

In addition, developers should decide which direction they want to go, whether they want to be application developers or core protocol developers? If you want to be a protocol developer, it’s very, very important to really delve into distributed systems, cryptography, and basically the cornerstone of blockchain. Next is to look at the codebase, Sui is open source, go see if you can change some things.

If you want to be an application developer, there are no restrictions, find a project, fork it, build it, and see if you can understand it.

Also, it is important to actively communicate with other developers or builders, find the communities you want to belong to, either online or in real life, you need to be able to work with and be guided by people who can really help you.

The Sui community is really passionate, we believe this is the future of technology, and we want to make sure we educate as many people as possible. Sui Builder House is purposely centered around builders, so you can talk to many different levels of engineers and builders.

Q: What programs and tools are being developed to accelerate Sui builders’ learning and productivity?

A: Sui is currently a very new public chain and we realize that there is a lack of educational content, which is something we are currently focusing on. Ensuring that our content caters to different audiences, from beginners to experienced developers, and in different media formats. Additionally, it needs to be localized to ensure that everyone has access to our content.

We need to be very mindful when programming our Builder Houses to ensure that we take feedback and plan and customize it for the attendees and then share the content created on YouTube or other media so that everyone can watch.

We already have some tools but we would like the community to provide help. I have seen a lot of great SDKs and IDEs, but this takes time and they are difficult to build and difficult to monetize. So if you are also building tools, please contact us in a timely manner and the Sui Foundation will find a way to help you. Sui core contributors are also researching how to make it as easy as possible for developers to develop.

Q: What are the most exciting developments in the community right now and how do you see these trends shaping the future of Sui?

A: People are trying to find creative ways to use new features, how they use dynamic fields? Programmable transaction blocks? People are looking for these features and thinking about how to use them to improve existing code libraries or create new use cases.

People are slowly understanding the power of Sui, studying it seriously from various different angles, and trying to test it in practice, which is very exciting.

Q: Are there any particular applications that you want developers to develop on Sui?

A: There are many, but for me, the most important thing I want to see is a solution to how we can reward contributors in a fair, transparent and verifiable way.

For example, if a contributor submits a patch to the network or SIP, how do we verify that contribution? How do we estimate the size of the contribution to properly reward them? How do we reward it in a way that is fair, equitable, and private, and everyone can reach consensus? If we can find a solution and achieve this goal, it will further promote the decentralization of Sui.

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