3.08 – Introducing Smart Contract Development Tools

Introducing Smart Contract Development Tools

In the following chapters of this course, you find out how to set up a development environment and develop smart contracts by using the Solidity language. As you see in this chapter, multiple tools are available for each stage of development. Instead of covering all the tools, we’re choosing one from each category so you can focus on finding out more about Solidity. You can use a different tool if you want – all of those listed are good choices.

Here’s what you’ll use:

» Ethereum blockchain client: You’ll use Geth, which is easy to install. Many tutorials use Geth as their client.

» Development and testing blockchain: Ganache-cli is the chosen development and testing blockchain. Ganache-cli makes it easy to set up new blockchains to test your smart contracts.

» Compiler and testing framework: We chose the Truffle suite, which provides an effective and easy-to-use collection of tools for compiling and testing your new smart contracts.

» Source code editor/IDE: This choice was the hardest. From so many good options, we chose the Atom IDE. For your development, try a few alternative editors/IDEs as well, to see which one is your favorite.

In Chapter 4 of this course, you discover how to download, install, and configure these tools. Then you’ll be ready to learn how to develop your own smart contracts.