Hello everyone,

I hope you all are having a nice day, welcome to CryptoGod-1's blog on all things Crypto. In this post I will be looking at some of the popular programming languages used when creating smart contracts. As most of us are probably aware by now, smart contracts are used for automatically executes actions according to the terms of the contract on the blockchain. It removes the need to trust a third-party site's or institutions when transferring the ownership of assets, exchanging digital assets, or to receive receipt after making payments. The programming language of Smart Contracts allow the users to write their programs and automatically have them implemented on the blockchain. Below are five of the more common and popular programs used for writing smart contracts and Blockchain development.

 

 

Solidity

This was created and based off of existing programming languages such as C++ and Python which makes it an easier language for developer adoption due to its similar language structure. It is an object-oriented and statically-typed programming language and was designed specifically to allow developers to create smart contracts. It was the first smart contract programming language and therefore has wide market adoption while being used to create and deploy a multitude of decentralized applications. It was created for writing smart contracts on Ethereum and makes runs on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

 

Advantages

• Due to its popularity and being the original language for smart contracts, solidity has a large and accessible community. This is excellent for new users as they have a large and wide community for support, learning and general knowledge when users have difficulty or just a question in general.
• As solidity is Turning-complete, it can be used to compute all computable functions and not just a handful.
• It has functions, string manipulation, classes, variables, arithmetic operations, etc, similar to what is offered in most modern programming languages. 
• It is a relatively simple language to learn without a steep learning curve, meaning people who know how to program with popular programming languages like Python, C++, and JavaScript pick it up pretty quickly as it is mainly made up of a syntax borrowed from these languages.

 

Drawbacks

• Due to it still being a fairly new language in terms of programming, the community is still growing and developing and while it has a large library and tools, there is still much to do in terms of the language. This means users will still have a lot to do in terms of fully implementing their requirements when coding the smart contract.

 

Some of the Blockchains which make use of Solidity are: Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Tron, and Avalanche.

 

 

Rust

Rust is a low-level statically-typed programming language which is fast and extremely memory efficient. It is a relatively new programming language but it has enormous power thanks to its simplicity, memory efficiency, reliability, and complexity. It assumes best practices when in use but also offers the flexibility of altering them if a user so chooses. This makes Rust an excellent option for programming a blockchain, and has a built in colour coded complier which has a detailed error output to help with debugging. Generally Rust shows the cause of an error and highlights where to find it within the code, along with an explanation of what is wrong. Sometimes it will also provide a solution to the error. 

 

Advantages

• Its low-level programming and high level of efficiency means it is easy enough to create decentralized applications with high throughput on Rust.
• It allows users to create write predictable programs, which is particularly useful for applications on blockchains

 

Drawbacks

• Due to it being a new programming language, Rust has some new concepts which may take some time for users to get accustomed with, especially for newer users.
• Its lack of libraries is obvious, especially when compared with other languages such as Python and JavaScript.
• Unfortunately using Rust means writing more code as users need to state every program construct explicitly in Rust.

 

Some of the Blockchains which make use of Rust are: Solana, Polkadot, and Near.

 

 

JavaScript

As a common and general purpose language, JavaScript is an entry-level language which tends to used in a JavaScript wrapper or library when it comes to Blockchains. This allows developers to navigate into the blockchain ecosystem relatively easily and begin creating amazing products from the off. There are several tools which have been created thanks to JavaScript to help with blockchain development, although it is not used for core Blockchain development due to its weak type checking. There is also a community built collection of libraries that allows you to interact with Ethereum smart contracts using HTTP, WebSocket, or IPC, along with Hyperledger Fabric which is a blockchain that allows smart contracts to be built with a number of programming languages, such as JavaScript (Node.js). It is also widely used along with HTML5 and CSS3 for web development.

 

Advantages

• There is plenty of community support out there thanks to JavaScript being a popular and mature language.
• Its quick at development compared to some of the never languages.

 

Drawbacks

• The typing for smart contracts are generally critical, meaning type safety is an important feature. Dynamic type is used by JavaScript when generally developers would make use of a statically typed language for applications that are built on the blockchain.

 

No Blockchains are built using JavaScript, but Solana makes used of a JavaScript wrapper with Rust to allows developers create Dapps through with JavaScript on the Blockchain.

 

 

Vyper

This is a contract orientated programming language which is similar to Python, and targets the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). It is packed with contract specific features such as custom global variables and global constants. It was created as a response to the security issues present in Solidity and to work in tandem with Solidity instead of replacing it. It has fewer features than Solidity, making contracts more secure and easier for auditing. 

 

Advantages

• Smart contracts built on Vyper is generally secure and are less prone to attacks.
• The code is simple to read for humans, as simplicity for the reader is more important than simplicity for the writer.
• Anybody who has worked with Python code should have no issues using Vyper.

 

Drawbacks

• It is limited in pure functions, meaning any code marked 'constant' is unable to change its state.
• It does not support modifiers, inheritance, inline assembly, function and operator overloading, recursive calling, infinite-length loops, and binary fixed points.

 

 

Yul

This is an intermediate programming language, previously also called JULIA or IULIA, which is compiled to bytecode for addressing the needs of different backends. It is a stand alone programme for inline assembly inside Solidity, along with being great for high-level optimization stages that can benefit both the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and the Ethereum Flavoured Web Assembly (EWASM). 

 

Advantages

• Any programmes written in Yul are generally readable even when the code is generated by a compiler from Solidity. It also offers high-level constructs such as loops, function calls, and if and switch statements.
• Its relatively simple to use due to the fact its code being translated from Yul code to bytecode.
• Its beginner friendly and uses simple and flexible language for creating contracts.

 

Drawbacks

• It requires additional time to complete a project with Yul, making it a time consuming process during development, due to needing to compile the code to bytecode.

 

 

Conclusion

Everyone is talking about smart contracts, blockchain, decentralized finance, and cryptocurrencies as the in things currently. Without developers however, these things would not exist and therefore the demand for blockchain developers has surged surge. The developers create smart contracts for executing and deploying conditions on the blockchain, either to create Dapps, transfer assets, and to executes actions according to the terms of the contract. There are a variety of languages available and the five reviewed above are some of the more popular ones. While solidity is the cornerstone for writing contracts on Ethereum, not all blockchains make use of this language. Therefore it is important to gain an understanding of the different programming languages available. From Rust to Yul, each language has its own benefits and drawbacks. Not all are able to create blockchain level coding but can be integrated via a wrapper such as JavaScript. Some are faster than others, and newer languages generally have less community support and libraries built up. As its still an emerging space, more languages are likely to pop up, but with the above list any developer should be able to implement their required application and smart contracts on the Blockchain of their choice.

 

 

*All images are referenced below*

Thanks very much for reading and I hope you enjoyed the article. While I understand not everyone is a developer, if anybody does have interest in learning more about Blockchain and coding in general I would highly recommend checking out some of the great tutorial videos available on YouTube, of which there are many. Simply search for "Learn Solidity Code" or whichever programme you want and a long list will appear.

Have a great day.

Peace. CryptoGod-1.

 

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