Author: Yuki, PaperMoon
Recently, we jointly developed a course called "Solidity on Polkadot" with OneBlock+. Originally, we wanted to see if anyone was interested in the PolkaVM development tool chain. As a result, 219 people signed up and the homework completion rate was close to 38%.
The data is pretty good, but what’s more interesting is that in this course, we unexpectedly saw the future direction of the Polkadot Chinese developer ecosystem.
This article would like to talk about these real users, feedback and problems, and also summarize how we found a roadmap to "ecological construction" from a brand new course.
Why do this course? It’s not to “take advantage of the trend”, but to “find the truth”
Polkadot is promoting the 2.0 upgrade, and the key words are cross-chain unification, lowering the threshold, and improving DevEx. As an execution environment compatible with Ethereum, PolkaVM is likely to become the "first stop" for Web2 or EVM developers to contact Polkadot. But we must admit a reality: in the "narrative-flying" Web3 world, technical narratives often become a kind of window-dressing talk. Those who are really willing to try are often very few. Many people's impression of Polkadot still remains that it is "complex", "incomprehensible", and "high development threshold", not to mention trying to write a contract or deploy a DApp. Of course, we also have the purpose of publicity for this course, but more importantly, we want to clarify a few issues:
What do developers really care about in a new VM environment?
Is PolkaVM an opportunity or a deterrent for them?
Can the tool chain run real projects, not just demos?
In the entire developer journey, which link is most likely to fall behind?
So, we made this course. It is not a cool technical lecture for experts, but an experiment for real developers to "go through the process". We want to be the "guide for newbies" first, accompany them for the first round, and see what happens.
4 unexpected observations
1️⃣ Be curious and willing to spend time
We originally thought that most people came here for the incentive or certificate, but it turned out that it was not the case. 80% were born in the 1990s, 1/4 were students, and most of them voluntarily spent 1-2 hours studying every day. This intensity of study was not just to "get it done", but to really try to see if it could work.
Some people learn from beginning to end just to deploy a contract by themselves; others say: "At least I can write one sentence on my resume - I have successfully deployed DApp in the PolkaVM environment." To put it bluntly, they don't necessarily care about how strong Polkadot's technical strength is, they just need a usable and friendly environment to verify whether I can enter Web3."
2️⃣ More experience ≠ easier to get started. The most difficult part is “switching cognitive models”
Many people have rich development experience, and even have practical experience in EVM projects, but once they enter the Polkadot ecosystem, they are still confused by some "terminology differences": What is PolkaVM? Is AssetHub a chain or a module? Why is the gas limit different from Ethereum? The contract was deployed successfully, but the front end cannot be adjusted?
Their problem is not that they "can't understand the code", but that the familiar cognitive model in their brains suddenly becomes invalid. When they think about having to re-understand a bunch of concepts, many people are directly "mentally discouraged".
Our course alleviates this gap to a certain extent, at least making participants realize that the development experience of PolkaVM is not difficult, it is just called differently, and the practice is not necessarily complicated. This is critical - because many people give up an ecosystem not because they can't write code, but because they can't understand the documents at first glance.
This also reminds us:
📚 Development documentation cannot just be a “pile of knowledge”, it must also help users complete cognitive switching.
In the future, we will add a comparison of the key differences between PolkaVM and other mainstream VMs (such as EVM) in the documentation, so that more people can avoid detours and have more moments of "Ah, so that's how it is".
3️⃣ Course participants are not only students, but also "invisible contributors"
Although most participants are beginners in contract development, they are willing to ask questions, report bugs, and test the technical boundaries. For example, someone pointed out that Remix compiled fine, but the on-chain deployment failed; these feedbacks directly led to us submitting multiple toolchain issues to Parity, which promoted document supplementation and bug fixes.
As a veteran, our DevRel teacher is used to bypassing some small pitfalls, and many "error warnings" are subconscious. But novices don't. They haven't established this judgment system yet, so they are more likely to step on landmines - which makes the course a very valuable problem collector. For participants, the course is a buffer zone; for us, these "real pitfalls" are the most intuitive thermometer of the PolkaVM ecological experience.
4️⃣ What really determines whether a developer
What makes people come back for the second time is the experience of the whole process
Many people leave not because they “can’t learn”, but because “something went wrong and no one told me how to solve it”.
The same code will give an error when the environment is changed; Hardhat, Foundry, and Remix give different results in different environments; the documentation does not find what you want, and the error message does not directly display the result, so you give up in anger.
We realize that:
Developer experience (DevEx) is not about whether the "moment of writing code" is smooth or not, but whether the entire process from environment construction, feedback from pitfalls, to deployment results, and even future upgrades is smooth and secure. As long as one link is off the chain, it is easy to "explode mentality". So it is better to say that it is a "design problem of emotion and trust" rather than a technical problem.
Use courses to close the loop between tools, users and expectations
In the early days of the ecosystem, we realized that the significance of developer courses has never been a one-way "knowledge inculcation", nor is it expected to select the next web3 startup star in one course. Instead, it has produced three useful results:
✅ Chain stress test
For example, in the Uniswap V2 contract migration exercise in the course, we thought it was just a normal practice, but it turned out to be a lot of "unexpected" problems: gas error, path bug, inconsistent performance of Remix and Hardhat...
These pitfalls are thresholds for developers, but they are “early symptoms” for us. The sooner we step on them, the better. Now they have all become Parity’s issue list and have been quickly resolved.
✅ User portraits and conversion leads
Some people care about architectural narratives, some pursue development efficiency, and some ask: "Can I use the tools I often use directly with PolkaVM?"
Each question is a real hesitation point for developers, and also reveals how to fill the "instruction manual" of PolkaVM.
✅ Establish product expectations
Our course is a bit like a multi-episode commercial, not relying on words, but on live demonstrations of whether PolkaVM is easy to use and worth waiting for. Some functions are not yet perfect? It doesn't matter, people are using it and are willing to wait, which is a sign of ecological development.
In the past, people always complained that no one used Polkadot. Is it true that no one used it? The teams that used it have always been the infrastructure chain teams, not DApp developers. Now that PolkaVM is online, people who write contracts can finally play. But there is bound to be hesitation: "Such a new VM, do I dare to be the first to try it?", "The network is still in the test network, is it worth my time?" However, it is precisely because of its newness that small teams have the opportunity to overtake others.
In this course, we migrated Uniswap V2, which caused a stir in the community. It's not that everyone has never seen Uniswap, but it's the first time to see it running on Polkadot. Even after many years, Polkadot itself is still a high-market-cap ecosystem with abundant grants and many whales holding DOT. Instead of getting hurt in Layer2, why not explore a blue ocean that no one has "jumped the gun" yet?
We are planning the content of the next course. If you have any modules or project practices you want to know about, please leave a message to tell us🫶
Disclaimer: The materials provided by PaperMoon and included in this article are for educational purposes only. They do not constitute financial or investment advice and should not be interpreted as guidance for any business decision. We recommend that readers conduct independent research and consult professionals before making any investment or business-related decisions. PaperMoon assumes no liability for any actions taken based on the contents of this article.
