Mel Padden, Head of Developer Relations for the Casper Association, emphasized making blockchain development more accessible. He highlighted that the goal is to reduce friction for developers, making it easier to get up and running on the Casper blockchain.

"It's all about reducing friction, my perspective for the developer in terms of getting up and running on the Casper blockchain and developing your first app and also making it easier and reducing any of the pain points to do with developing, particularly in developing and deploying smart contracts," Mel said.

One of the tools that play a crucial role in achieving this goal is the Fondant tool. Fondant simplifies creating, running, and managing a local blockchain; essential for testing smart contracts without the side effects and gas fees associated with live networks. Mel explained that while some developers prefer command-line interfaces, a visual tool like Fondant offers an easier and more organized way to manage local networks.

Maciej Zielinski, who leads the development of Odra, shared his journey into blockchain and the motivation behind creating Odra.

"Blockchains allow you to build different kinds of products that are not possible without it. Like there's a need on the market for that. Look at DeFi already shows a lot of benefits where you can basically manage your money by yourself and things like international transfers," Maciej noted.

Odra was created to further simplify the process of developing smart contracts. It serves as a layer on top of the Casper Smart Contract API, providing a more expressive way to write smart contracts. The framework is inspired by Solidity but leverages Rust's robust ecosystem.

"When you discover Rust and how you can write it, you suddenly discover this huge world of thousands of libraries that are already written, tested, that are sitting out there waiting for you to use them. So, definitely Solidity developers will love Rust," Maciej explained.

For developers eager to dive into Odra, Maciej recommended starting with the GitHub repository and the official documentation, which includes comprehensive guides and examples.

Don’t forget to check out the Odra tutorials on the Casper Developer Portal.

One of the key aspects of Odra is its focus on reusability. Both Mel and Maciej highlighted the importance of not reinventing the wheel with each new project. Instead, developers can build on top of existing, well-tested modules.

"What I think is that the success of Ethereum comes mostly from the success of Solidity. Before Solidity, there were other languages. But they never clicked. Then they came up with Solidity, and it clicked, and people started using it. You don't even have to write, you can just take a module that already was written, and just maybe change a bit. And this reusability was something that always stuck," Maciej said.

Odra follows this philosophy by providing a library of reusable code. Developers can use pre-built modules for common functionalities, such as tokens and access control, allowing them to focus on the unique aspects of their applications.

Another advantage of Odra and related tools is the reduction of cognitive load for developers. Mel emphasized the importance of minimizing the mental effort required for routine tasks, allowing developers to concentrate on the core logic of their applications.

"You do not want to spend a lot of your time worrying about the nuts and bolts of the basic things you do every day because that's essentially the CPU cycles that you can then use on developing your smart contracts or your application," Mel explained.

The future of blockchain development looks promising with tools like Odra. Mel and Maciej believe that these tools will lead to the creation of more robust and innovative applications.

"The things that we're developing right now in Casper R&D and in other associations in the web 3 space, again, I use the metaphor of taking the power and the responsibility for developing this infrastructure away from a centralized authority, like the old railroad system, putting it back into the hands of the consumer and they're rock solid and they've been tested and we're going to be building robust distributed systems," Mel said.

Odra is already production-ready, with several modules available for developers to use. Combined with the other tools in the Casper ecosystem, Odra provides a comprehensive solution for blockchain development.

Odra will play a crucial role in driving innovation and enabling developers to create more impactful and secure applications. For those interested in exploring the possibilities of blockchain, now is the perfect time to dive in with the tools and resources provided by the Casper ecosystem.

Stay tuned for more insightful podcast episodes by Casper!