Plutus Tx: Compiling Haskell Into Plutus Core

Get to the heart of writing smart contract applications on Cardano

Visual made by @ieprog

Last week saw the release of the refreshed version of the Plutus Playground. This is our showcase for the Plutus Platform, at the heart of which is the ability to write smart contract applications in a single, high-level language: Haskell.

Our toolchain allows a single Haskell program to produce not only an executable file that users can run on their own computers, but also the code that runs on the Cardano blockchain. This gives users a battle-tested, high-quality programming language, and makes use of standard tooling and library support. Nobody wants to learn a proprietary programming language and half-baked tools if they don’t have to!

The technology that powers this is called Plutus Tx, and is, in essence, a compiler from Haskell to Plutus Core – the language that runs on the chain – provided as a GHC plug-in. In this post we’ll dive into how this works, and some of the technical challenges.

Contents:

• Boiling Down Haskell

• Down the Tube

• Sneaking Into GHC

• The Switcheroo

• Finding the Source

• Run Time Matters Too

• Getting Out of the Way

• Postscript: Show me the Money!

Source: https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2021/02/02/plutus-tx-compiling-haskell-into-plutus-core/