The Neo Frontier Launchpad has given developers from within the Neo community invaluable feedback on its suite of tools. In episode 57 of the NNT podcast, AxLabs senior engineers Guil. Sperb Machado and Claude Müller, talk about how the hackathon event has provided a platform for them to improve their products.

AxLabs is the team responsible for the neow3j Java-based toolkit for Neo. The Launchpad event has given AxLabs a unique opportunity to test the capabilities of its tooling and collect feedback. Müller said:

I’m really thankful that the Neo Foundation did this hackathon. The hackathon brought a lot of valuable information to us. So, first of all, it showed that our tools are useful and that they work. This was the first time where a lot of people came in and used it, and that was very satisfying and motivating to see that it works.

AxLabs aims to integrate lessons learned during the Neo Frontier Launchpad into future neow3j releases.

One of these lessons was the recognition of a need for more sample code. For the first time, AxLabs was able to think beyond the core neow3j feature set and instead watch it be used to create real world applications.

Müller said, “We were also surprised at the ideas that [hackathon participants] had. Because we were so focused on doing the tooling, we didn’t think about what will we actually build with the tooling… We were just working on the tooling all the time – we forget the bigger picture sometimes. We’re really liking what we’re seeing developers do with Neo.”

The AxLabs team is channeling this energy into offering templates. With more examples, developers will be able to replicate dApps and bootstrap development. According to Machado:

I’m a huge fan of boilerplates. I don’t know if the audience knows what is a boilerplate, but it’s something which you can start building. You take that, you copy, you clone that, and then you start developing on top of that further.

One example of boilerplate code is AxLabs’ meme governance dApp. The dApp allows users to propose a meme, vote on the proposal, and implement other parameters. Machado and Müller recently delivered a Launchpad workshop using the meme governance dApp as an example.

Ultimately, the AxLabs team is excited to take the information from Launchpad participants and update its tools accordingly. Looking forward, it intends to improve neow3j testing, workflows, the developer experience, and create more templates.

The full interview can be found at the link below:

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