By Cameron Nazarko

The original | medium.com/coinmonks/s…

This article covers using Solidity and ink! The differences and advantages of writing smart contracts for ink! “And why it stands out.

1. What are smart contracts?

Smart contracts are automated applications that run automatically on a decentralized network, such as Edgeware. Smart contracts are agreements between two people in the form of computer code. They run on a blockchain, so they are stored in a public database and cannot be changed. One of the nice things about blockchain is that because it’s a decentralized system that exists between all permitted parties, there’s no need to pay an intermediary (middleman) fee, saving you time and conflict. Blockchains have other problems, but admittedly their ratings are faster, cheaper and more secure than traditional systems, which is why banks and governments have also turned to them.

To put this in perspective, let’s imagine that John is going to buy Bob’s house, and the agreement will be made on the blockchain using a smart contract that contains the agreement between John and Bob.

In simple terms, the contract reads as follows: “When Bob pays John 150 ETH, Bob gets ownership of the house”.

The picture

In this case, Bob and John would have to pay a lot of fees to third parties, including banks, lawyers and housing brokers, if they didn’t use smart contracts. You find this across society, and with smart contracts you can do almost every transaction. These smart contracts are made with Solidity and INK! Written in such programming languages. In this article, we will introduce the differences between them.

2. Solidity

Solidity is the code behind Ethereum, one of the largest blockchain platforms in the world. Computer scientist Dr Gavin Wood originally proposed the concept of Solidity languages in August 2014. The language was later taken over by the Ethereum team Solidity led by Christian Reitwiessner.

Solidity is a high-level programming language created for implementing smart contracts. Solidity is influenced by C ++, Python and JavaScript and designed to run on Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVM). It is a statically typed programming language that performs the process of validating and enforcing constraints at compile time rather than at run time.

3. The benefits of Solidity

  • Solidity provides inheritance properties in the contract, including multiple inheritance.

  • And the ink! Arguably easier to learn than eDSL (embedded Domain Specific Language) because Solidity is similar to other commonly used high-level languages.

  • The introduction of the ABI (Application Binary Interface), which implements multiple type-safe functions in a single contract.

It is widely used as the smart contract programming language of choice in Ethereum work because it was designed specifically for Ethereum. This means more support from a larger community that has time to work out bugs and provide a user/developer friendly development environment.

Simple Solidity smart contracts and basic syntax/layout examples

4. The ink!

Ink! Rust-based Embedded Domain-Specific Language (eDSL), for writing Wasm (WebAssembly) Smart Contracts, specifically for FRAME Contracts Pallets created by Parity Technologies. Parity, also founded by Gavin Wood, has developed Substrate for building blockchain frameworks and Polkadot, a next-generation public chain platform that connects individual blockchains together.

The Polkadot relay chain itself will not support smart contracts. However, parallel chains on Polkadot will support smart contracts. Smart contract platform Edgeware is a grass-root autonomous block chain that is planned to bind to Polkadot networks and use ink! , because ink! Is an innovative solution for writing smart contracts using the Rust programming language.

Ink! Provides maximum flexibility for novice and experienced developers as it chooses not to invent new programming languages, but rather by simply starting with #[ink(…)] Add some attribute tags to fit the subset of Rust so they blend together. Rust is a great language, especially suited to blockchain use cases. Many of the constraints you encounter on a blockchain are the same constraints you find in highly reliable embedded systems: low code, high security, high reliability, and minimal resource footprint.

Simple INK! Examples, smart contracts and basic syntax, layout

5. Why use Wasm as a smart contract VM?

  • Wasm is high-performance, keeping it as close to native code as possible while maintaining platform independence.

  • It helps send small binaries over the Internet to devices with slow connections, making it ideal for the space-constrained world of blockchain.

  • It was developed so that the code can be deployed in any browser with the same results. In contrast to EVM, it is not developed for a specific use case, which has the advantage that many tools are available and that large companies have invested significant resources to drive Wasm development.

  • Efficient JIT execution: support for 64-bit and 32-bit integer arithmetic, one-to-one mapping to CPU instructions.

Wasm expands the family of languages available to smart contract developers, including Rust, C/C ++, C #, Typescript, Haxe, and Kotlin, which means you can write smart contracts in any language you’re familiar with, We prefer Rust despite its lack of Runtime overhead and inherent security.

6. Why use Rust to write smart contracts?

  • Rust Ecosystem: You can get all the support Rust Ecosystem has to offer for free. With the development of language, INK! Automatically gain access to new features, improving the way you write smart contracts in the future.

  • Rust is an ideal smart contract language: type-safe, memory-safe, and without undefined behavior. It generates small binaries because it is not as redundant as the garbage collector, and advanced optimization and Tree shaking can remove invalid code. Rust automatically prevents integer overflows through compiler flags.

  • No overhead: minimum running time.

  • First-class Wasm: Rust provides first-class support for Wasm.

  • Toolchain more complete: Because ink! Tools that follow Rust’s standard library, such as RustFMT, Clippy and Rust-Analyzer, are already available for direct use. The same is true for code formatting and syntax highlighting in most modern text editors, and Rust also has integration testing and benchmark runners.

  • Code storage is small: Storage size is important in the space-constrained world of blockchains, and the Rust compiler provides a great help for this. Because it reorders the structure fields to make each type as small as possible. As a result, Rust data structures are very compact, in many cases even more compact than C.

The snapshot comparison

7. To summarize

Smart contracts have great potential to provide solutions for different channels in today’s social marketplace. The relationship between business and customers is built on trust, and when trust breaks down, contracts are what people rely on. In some cases, participants do not adhere to the terms of the contract, and smart contracts can provide a solution to these unreliable situations and create a pleasant and efficient service experience. Without the need to rely on intermediaries, it helps bring everyone closer to a decentralized, autonomous society.

As the ink! Smart contract technology continues to expand and innovate, and inspire more mainstream blockchain technology adoption. Finally, you should decide on which platform to build on and understand the various tools available to you and the ones that interest you most. This will help you make an informed decision about which programming language is best for you.

About Patract

Patract provides solutions for parallel chain and DApp development in boca’s Wasm contract ecosystem. We help the community design and develop on-chain contract module and Runtime support, and provide DApp developers with a full stack of tools and services covering the development, testing, debugging, deployment, monitoring, data provisioning, and front-end development phases.

How to join Patract

1. For contract developers, visit the official website (Patract.io) to familiarize yourself with the test chain and tool suite. Element (app.element. IO /#/room/#Pat… Discord (Discord. Gg /wJ8TnTfjcq) search ** “Patract Development platform” ** Follow wechat public account

2. Welcome to Patract open platform: open.patract.io for parallel chain projects that will integrate the functionality of the Wasm contract, or DApp projects developed using the Wasm contract

3. For users, welcome to join: Telegram (t.me/ Patract) Twitter (twitter.com/PatractLabs…

4. For job seekers, we are recruiting blockchain development engineer, front-end/full stack development engineer, product manager, developer operation and other positions, you can contact [email protected]