Withdraw 1,162,746 ada for MLabs Core Tool Maintenance & Enhancement: Plutarc...
This Treasury Withdrawal funds MLabs Core Tool Maintenance & Enhancement: Plutarch and Ply. This Treasury Withdrawal is submitted by Intersect on behalf of the vendor. The content for the following sections; Abstract, Motivation and Rationale have been sourced from the approved proposal submitted by the Vendor as part of the Intersect budget process.
Reasoning
Written after the vote was cast
What this asks for, and from whom
1,162,746 ADA, submitted by Intersect on behalf of MLabs, for a year of maintenance and enhancement of Plutarch and Ply. The Haskell eDSL for writing efficient Cardano smart contracts and the tooling that protects the on-chain/off-chain boundary around them.
What would have to be true for this to be a good use of treasury funds
The tools have to be genuinely relied on, and the numbers have to be sane. MLabs counted at least 26 teams building with Plutarch and Ply in a recent internal audit, and their public cross-language benchmarks show Plutarch scripts among the smallest and cheapest in the suite. Production teams depending on tooling that must track protocol evolution. That's the definition of maintenance the treasury should carry.
What specifically concerns me
Not much, honestly. This came through the Intersect budget process and cleared the 67% Hydra vote threshold before it ever reached the chain, so it's been through a filter already. The one thing I keep an eye on across all of these maintenance grants is scope creep. "maintenance and enhancement" can quietly become new-product development. The Dijkstra-era compatibility work named in the proposal is exactly what I want this money doing.
What I am asking of the proposer if this passes
It was enacted. Keep the benchmarks public and current. That's the receipt that the efficiency story stays true. And when the 26 dependent teams becomes 30 or becomes 20, say so either way. Honest dependency counts are what make next year's ask an easy vote instead of an argument.