Essential Skills for Web3 Developers: In-Depth Analysis of Smart Contract Languages

Smart contracts are automated execution agreements on blockchain platforms that enable direct and trustworthy transactions between parties without the need for intermediaries. The contracts contain code functions that can interact with other contracts and execute automatically when predefined conditions are met.

The concept of smart contracts was proposed by Nick Szabo in the 1990s, but it was not widely used until the emergence of Ethereum. Launched in 2015, Ethereum supports the deployment and execution of smart contracts and is hailed as the second generation of blockchain.

Smart contract languages are used to write smart contracts, which are compiled into bytecode and executed on the blockchain platform's virtual machine. An excellent smart contract language needs to express contract rules safely and efficiently, and provide tools for handling blockchain transactions and states.

Currently, most smart contract developers work on Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains. Solana is the platform with the most developers in the non-EVM compatible ecosystem, while Move is designed specifically for securely developing blockchain smart contracts.

EVM-based languages

EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) is the core of Ethereum, running smart contracts and processing transactions. EVM adopts a multi-level hierarchical structure, including bytecode, intermediate language, and high-level language.

On Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains, the most popular languages are Solidity and Vyper, with Yul, Yul+, Fe, and Huff also available as options.

Solidity is an object-oriented programming language influenced by C++, Python, and JavaScript. It offers multiple inheritance for code reuse and defines the ABI standard.

Vyper, developed by Vitalik Buterin's team, is an alternative to Solidity. It is similar to Python and focuses on safety, readability, and Gas efficiency.

Yul is an assembly language with advanced control flow and is part of the Solidity toolchain. Yul+ is an extended version of Yul.

Fe is a high-level language similar to Rust that implements code reuse through a module-based system.

Huff is a low-level assembly language that allows for manual stack control.

On Ethereum, Solidity occupies about 90% of the market share, which is ten times that of the second place, Vyper. Yul and Yul+ are commonly used for Gas optimization, while Huff is used for extreme Gas optimization.

Solana Language

Solana is known for its PoH mechanism and high performance. Solana refers to smart contracts as on-chain programs, primarily written in Rust.

The core component Sealevel of the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) implements parallel processing. Solana's smart contracts specify the runtime state to be read and written, allowing for conflict-free transactions to be executed in parallel.

SBF is based on eBPF, offering high performance, security, and portability. SBF uses custom validators to ensure program correctness and termination.

In theory, any language that supports compilation to LLVM IR can be used to write Solana smart contracts, but in practice, Solana Labs has made special modifications to the Rust and eBPF LLVM backends. Currently, Solana contract development mainly supports Rust and Solang.

Rust is a general-purpose static compiled language developed by Mozilla, focusing on performance and safety. Solang is an LLVM-based Solidity compiler that supports the use of modified Solidity on Solana and Polkadot.

Move Language

Move is the smart contract language developed for Meta's Diem project, featuring first-class resource type protection, flexibility, and security verifiability.

Aptos and Sui inherited Move after the dissolution of the Diem project, using Core Move and Sui Move respectively.

Move adopts a modular design, where each smart contract is a module composed of function and structure definitions. Sui Move introduces an object-based data model that supports parallel processing.

The compiler, verifier, and virtual machine of Move are all specifically designed. The verifier is the core security mechanism that ensures compliance with type, memory, and resource safety rules.

Move Prover is a formal verification tool for smart contracts that converts verification conditions into SMT formulas for checking.

smart contracts development tools

For developers of EVM-compatible chains, Solidity is the preferred language. The main development tools include:

• Hardhat: A development environment for compiling, deploying, testing, and debugging Ethereum applications.
• OpenZeppelin: Provides a secure open-source library for smart contracts.
• Foundry: A Solidity-centric framework for building, testing, and deploying smart contracts.

Solana is the second choice after Ethereum, but the development difficulty is higher. The Anchor framework can simplify the Solana development process.

The Move language has innovations in its underlying security design, but the current ecosystem and tools are not yet完善.

Summary

When evaluating smart contract languages, ease of use, security, and ecosystem resources are often considered.

Solidity has the greatest influence, with a wealth of development tools and libraries.

Rust is widely used in the Solana ecosystem, compensating for the security shortcomings of Solidity.

Move has added more security mechanisms at the underlying level, but the ecosystem is still in its early stages.