This past week, I took four days to learn and successfully create a decentralized full stack application using the protocol. Prior to the week, my knowledge of was sparse, and I felt intimidated getting started. However, with companies as diverse as Pfizer and American Express exploring its use, it was a tool that seemed hard to ignore as a developer. Creating a decentralized application (dApp) ended up being a great and provide a less intimidating context for understanding .
If you are like me and are interested in or decentralized applications in particular, here are the list of tools you’ll encounter and tutorials I found to be really helpful!
Dependencies — NPM!
Like any web application, a lot of good tools and libraries to serve the front end of your decentralized application will make use of the Node Package Manager (NPM). Make sure you have the latest version.
$ node -v
provides a suite of tools necessary to develop a dAPP. Truffle includes a Solidity compiler, the truffle console to test and directly work with your smart contract, and other developer tools.
The truffle framework also includes a boilerplate library that allows you to develop your application with React, ReactNative, Webpack, etc. Once you download truffle you can ‘unbox’ the boilerplate with a single command line.
$ npm install -g truffle
$ truffle unbox drizzle
Solidity and Contracts
If you are familiar with Javascript, writing contracts in Solidity is similar to objects and ES6 classes in Javascript. Top monk’s provides a quick lookup of how to declare variables, functions, etc. within Solidity whenever you get stuck.
A helpful tool I’ve found for writing solidity contracts includes a Solidity syntax highlighter and linter. I used the most frequently downloaded extension on VSCode, but other code editors should also have syntax highlighters. Solidity versions seem to change frequently and paying attention to the syntax highlighter and error message was key to debugging my master contracts especially when Solidity tutorials or guidelines jumped between Solidity versions.
Ganache
Ganache is the in memory local provided by the truffle framework. The account provides 10 accounts with 100 ether each. The best part of ganache is your ability to hook into accounts and directly work with your master contract even before creating the frontend component of your application.
MetaMask
While working with the locally stored accounts are a great way to debug your master contract, you will eventually want to test your full application using MetaMask. MetaMask is a chrome extension that allows you to use decentralized application with a clean UI for the . However, going from relying on locally saved accounts to MetaMask created some issues that required some debugging. Import the ganache accounts into MetaMask and start testing out your app!
Great tutorials to get started
- : A fun way to learn the entire process of creating a decentralized application.
- : This one hour tutorial provides a step by step process on how to create a decentralized voting app. You can code along the tutorial or refer to the guide for help. Gregory explains blockchain applications in a very easy and patient manner and helps you see the larger concepts of blockchain
- : The truffle framework also provides its own tutorial where you can unbox one of their boilerplates and create a petshop using all the tools above with html, css, jquery, and web pack on the front end.
- : This course helps you build a tic tact toe blockchain application where you can send ether to the winning member! This tutorial is a bit more extensive, but extremely thorough.
Happy !
Published at Mon, 18 Mar 2019 00:17:01 +0000
