# Engineering Weekly Update - 2021-09-20

**URL:** <https://gov.near.org/t/engineering-weekly-update-2021-09-20/6078>\
**Category:** Engineering Updates\
**Tags:** weekly-updates\
**Created:** [September 20, 2021, 7:06pm UTC](https://gov.near.org/t/engineering-weekly-update-2021-09-20/6078 "2021-09-20T19:06:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nearmax](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/gov.near.org/nearmax/32/13344_2.png) [@nearmax](https://gov.near.org/u/nearmax)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 7:06pm UTC](https://gov.near.org/t/engineering-weekly-update-2021-09-20/6078/1 "2021-09-20T19:06:33Z")

</div>

# Brief Summary

- This week we started working on defining Q4 OKRs so some teams can be missing their updates for this and the next two weeks;
- If you have issues with M1 Apple chip, see [this workaround](https://docs.near.org/docs/faq/developer-faq#4-building-smart-contracts-on-apple-m1-arm64);
- Contract Runtime team evaluated that the new gas counter will make Wasm operations ~4x cheaper.
- We have merged the code for [the sharded state catch-up](https://github.com/near/nearcore/pull/4714);

# Results

- Node Experience projected future GCP costs and worked with validators community;
- Contract Runtime team found a way to roll out the new gas counter without changing the protocol (except for the fee update and some nuances with stack);
- Node Interfaces team released [Indexer for Explorer v0.10.1](https://github.com/near/near-indexer-for-explorer/releases/tag/0.10.1) to catch-up with nearcore v1.21.1;
- Node Interfaces added improvements to the Nodes/Validators and Transactions Details tabs in Explorer;
- Node Interfaces added stability improvements to [Explorer statistics](https://explorer.near.org/stats);
- Node Interfaces is preparing for the first release of [near-jsonrpc-client-rs](https://github.com/near/near-jsonrpc-client-rs);
- Core team has discovered that contract loading time depends on the number of imports;
- Demo of Grain SDK is available [here](https://github.com/grain-lang/near-simple-counter/pull/2/);
- Developer Platform [tested extension system of near-cli-rs](https://github.com/near/near-cli-rs/pull/52);
- Developer Platform added [a convenience wrapper for runner-js](https://github.com/near/runner-jest);
- Developer Platform support of [successful/failed callbacks into Rust SDK](https://github.com/near/near-sdk-rs/pull/554);

# Challenges and Blockers

- [Aurora is still blocked on Wasm execution being too expensive for some cases](https://github.com/orgs/near/projects/27). The progress is being made by the Contract Runtime team, as explained above, but the changes are not in the production, yet;
- Indexer for Explorer had 4 major incidents in the past 2 weeks, see [the plan for improving the uptime](https://github.com/near/near-indexer-for-explorer/discussions/161);
- We are still uncovering nuances and complexities of running Wasm VM on a blockchain;
- Lack of NFT standardization is blocking Node Interfaces team;
- Indexer data is becoming too large for Postgres;

# Full Reports

- [Developer Relations](http://gov.near.org/t/devrel-weekly-update-we-09-18-21/6072);
- [Node Experience](https://github.com/near/community/discussions/99);
- [Contract Runtime](https://github.com/near/nearcore/discussions/4832);
- [Node Interfaces](https://github.com/near/nearcore/discussions/4846);
- [Core](https://github.com/near/community/discussions/100);
- [Developer Platform](https://github.com/near/community/discussions/102);