What is Solidity and How is it used for Smart Contracts? -Layman's Guide

Introduction to Solidity:

Solidity is a contract oriented high-level programming language which is used for writing smart contracts. It was developed by Gavin Wood, Christian Reitwiessner, Alex Beregszaszi, Liana Husikyan, Yoichi Hirai and several former Ethereum core contributors. Solidity is designed to target the implementation of smart contracts on various Blockchain platforms. This platform has a lot of similarity with JavaScript (another scripting language). Solidity does the process of verifying and enforcing the constraints at compile-time as opposed to the run-time. The programming language Solidity is basically there to develop and execute code in the Ethereum Virtual Machine. 

The latest released version of Solidity is Solidity 0.7.1 with fixes being introduced regularly.

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Whats are Smart Contracts?

Smart contracts are programs written in Solidity and are the best means to exchange money, property, shares, or anything of value in a clear way without any issues. This basically eliminates the role of middleman. The best way to go into depth of smart contracts is by comparing the technology to a vending machine.  If we go through the normal process, you will visit the lawyer or notary, pay them the amount. After that, you will wait to get your documents but if we go with the smart contracts, you will just simply drop bitcoin into the vending machine ( also known as ledger) and your escrow, driver’s license, or whatever drops into your account. All the more, if we consider the traditional contract,  there are rules and penalties for the same but in smart contracts, these are not stated but obligations are automatically attached to it.

Read More: 8 Experts on the Future of Blockchain Technology

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is an open software platform which allows development of blockchain apps using the existing Ethereum blockchain. Similar to Bitcoin, Ethereum is also a distributed public blockchain network. Though you can spot some considerable technical differences between the two. The most important difference which one should keep in mind is that Bitcoin and Ethereum considerably differ in the function and its potential.  Bitcoin actually allows one typical application of blockchain technology which is a peer to peer electronic cash system which facilitates online Bitcoin payments. On the other hand, Ethereum can be used to leverage blockchain to decentralize any activity or function. When we talk about Bitcoin blockchain it is used to find ownership of digital currency whereas Ethereum blockchain lays emphasis on working on the programming code of any decentralized application.

In the Ethereum blockchain, miners work to earn Ether (a crypto token that fuels the network) instead of mining for bitcoin. Beyond a tradeable cryptocurrency, Ether is used on the Ethereum network by application developers to pay for transaction fees and services.

As stated by Don Tapscott “[Ethereum] blockchain has a great number of extraordinary capabilities. The most crucial among them is that you can build smart contracts. It’s kind of what it sounds like. It’s a contract that self-executes and the contract handles the enforcement, the management, performance, and payment.”

Read More: Applications of Blockchain in the Modern Economy

Relation between Smart Contracts and Solidity:

For writing Ethereum smart contracts, Solidity is used which provides a great number of ways of allowing contracts to interrelate with other contracts. Smart contracts can be used in various forms. From the functioning of other contracts to creating and diminishing of other contracts, all can be done via them. There are a number of use cases for this aptitude.

One of the most striking cases is about upgradeable contracts. It is not possible to change the code of a working smart contract once it has been started. This is due to immutable nature of the blockchain. But if we use the method for assigning calls, a proxy can be arranged by pointing another contract which contains the actual business logic. This working actually helped to enhance the working of the contract by providing a different target address to the proxy contract. For example, implementing a newly positioned version of the marked contract while fixing some bugs.

The similar method can be adjusted to use other contracts as libraries. This actually decreases deployment costs, as the contract using the library does not require to execute all the code itself.

Another use-case which we can count is by simply using contracts as a sort of data stores. For example, in different smart contracts one can attempt to separate logic and data. Now the logic of a contract can actually be developed or changed out via substitute contracts while maintaining all the related condition in the data in the contract. It is actually a powerful concept when one is able to call and create contracts using a base smart contract.  

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