The Most Popular Blockchain Programming Languages

Today, cryptocurrencies and blockchains are not new to the public, these technologies have long been discussed by all global media.

Taking into account the name “blockchain”, it can be defined as a block that contains digital information and does not allow hackers to extract this information in any possible way.

The blockchain template was designed to ensure the security of bitcoin data in all aspects of the word. But now, thanks to a high level of security in a programming language, it has become a favorite mode for most countries, and each of them is looking forward to using the same method to ensure maximum security.

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If you are a young developer of a blockchain, you should know about the most popular programming languages of the blockchain technology, because each of them has its pros and cons, and also affects the capabilities of the blockchain.

In this article, you will learn about the 6 most common programming languages for Blockchain technology that are changing business.

C++

C++ is a time-tested programming language that is very popular among various programmers. C++ is a statically typed, usually compiled multi-paradigm universal programming language of medium complexity.

Simply put, C++ is not a very complex, efficient, and universal C-based programming language. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup in 1979.

Many modern operating systems, system drivers, browsers and games use C++ as their primary language. This makes C++ one of the most popular languages today.

Since this is an extended version of the programming language C, C and C++ are often referred to together as C/C++.

The language supports a variety of programming options from traditional methods to the generating. C++ is most often chosen as the first programming language for four reasons:

1. Compiled language with static typing.
2. The combination of high-level and low-level tools.
3. OOP implementation.
4. STL.

The compiler is probably the most ideal part of C++. The language has a large number of console commands and compilers. Despite the fact that the first “creation” must be created in a regular text editor, and also use a compiler, C++ can perfectly show itself at its best.

Static typing - the types of this language are mostly similar to their predecessor C and are not very complex.

Computational performance is the pride of C++, since the external language interface is transparently built. C libraries can be called from C++ at no extra cost. With some restrictions, C++ code can be exported externally indistinguishable from C code. The code allows its user to control all aspects of the structure as comfortably as possible. Language supports low-level memory interaction.

The Standard Template Library (STL) provides tremendous possibilities for finding support functions, containers, and algorithms. It is considered one of the best among all programming languages. Each container has its own iteration group (5 total).

This means that C++ represents many possibilities in creating a real blockchain infrastructure. If optimization of the number of transactions is considered the main task, C++ is a natural choice.

About this programming language written hundreds of books in many different languages, so the study does not require large forces, moreover, the language itself is designated as medium complexity.

Simplicity

Simplicity like most other languages in this article is an object-oriented programming language. While C++ is over 30 years old, Simplicity is unlikely to reach this mark anytime soon. This is perhaps the most famous young programming language. It was created by Russell O'Connor and announced in November 2017.

Simplicity is a higher level programming language that is most often used in the world of the blockchain to write clearer smart contracts. For comparison, Bitcoin cryptocurrency has an intelligent contract language called Bitcoin Script, however, it is rather low level and requires a deep understanding of Bitcoin.

Simplicity was originally planned as “ideal option” compared to existing cryptocurrency languages, avoiding their shortcomings and opening up new perspectives for smart contracts on blockchains when building on the basis of the Bitcoin UTXO model.

Simplicity offers an improved security concept. It starts with type safety: Simplicity is a typed functional programming language using combinators. There is also security that is provided by analyzability: although Simplicity is finally complete, allowing all final calculations to be programmed and providing all the functionality necessary for a powerful system of intelligent contracts, it is Turing incomplete, prohibiting unlimited cycles and allowing static analysis. Finally, formal semantics supports language considerations in the Coq Proof Assistant, ensuring the security of formal verification.

The Simplicity language offers several significant improvements, the first of which is the completion and empowerment of scripts.

Simplicity improves the concepts of existing cryptocurrency languages by integrating Merklized Abstract Syntax Trees (MAST). As a native programming language MAST, Simplicity organizes its programs into trees, and then reveals only those parts that are necessary for execution. Unused parts of the program are removed, increasing confidentiality and reducing block space requirements.

Summarizing many of the low-level concepts from the Bitcoin script, Simplicity makes creating smart contracts faster and easier than any other programming language.

Most often when creating smart contracts, the core of Simplicity is implemented as a module of Haskell. This module exports functions that allow you to write and execute Simplicity expressions in Haskell code practically without translation.

JavaScript

According to a 2018 survey, JavaScript is the most popular language on the GitHub software development and hosting website. JavaScript and its dozens of libraries, from jQuery and React to Angular and Node, are the driving force behind modern web development.

Why is javascript so popular? This is largely because the language copes very well with asynchronous actions.

This feature makes JavaScript an ideal language for blockchain operations. As the number of users in your blockchain increases, you may have thousands or millions of people performing actions simultaneously. JavaScript easily handles communication between all the different nodes of the blockchain. However, please note that JavaScript is not as effective as C++ in terms of maximum performance of your computer.

Since the code is executed on the client side, the results and processing are completed almost instantly depending on the task (tasks in JavaScript on web pages are usually simple to avoid memory loss), since it does not need to be processed on the website’s web server and is sent back to the user, consuming both local and server capacity.

JavaScript does not require a compilation process, so a compiler is not required. The browser interprets JavaScript as HTML tags. It includes all the capabilities of a procedural language. Splitting, recycling, state checking are some of the features that can be performed on a web page.

Being event based, different code segments are executed whenever a certain event occurs in JavaScript. In simple language, a code segment is executed when the user presses a button or points the mouse over an object.

Using JavaScript reduces entry barriers for developers interested in programming blockchains.

Python

Like JavaScript, Python is easy to learn and is a common entry point into the world of programming, especially for scientists and data analysts. Python has a large active community that has released libraries, such as SciPy, NumPy and Pandas, for various technical applications in mathematics, science and technology.

Python is a popular high-level dynamic general-purpose programming language that has been on the market for almost 30 years. Today it is easy to find it almost everywhere: web and desktop applications, machine learning, network servers, blockchains and much more. Python is the fastest growing programming language according to StackOverflow Trends. Future traffic forecasts for major programming languages indicate that Python should overtake Java in 2018. Indeed, a search engine for job search related to employment worldwide evaluates Python as the third most profitable programming language in the world. This means that more and more programmers are learning this language and using it.

In particular, Python perfectly processes numbers — accepts large data sets, cleans, processes, analyzes, and visualizes them. These skills are very well suited for data-driven industries such as finance and IoT.

With the appearance of the Raspberry Pi, a card-sized microcomputer, Python has expanded its reach to unprecedented heights.

Python has many frameworks that make web programming very flexible. Django is the most famous Python framework for web development.

Due to the lack of need for large codes, the development process can be very fast. Even a small team can work efficiently with Python.

Python makes it easy to scale even the most complex applications. In addition, Python offers a built-in test environment to set debug time and ensure fast workflow.

In addition to these features, Python is an excellent general-purpose programming language that can be used both to create blockchains and to write smart contracts.

Solidity

Solidity is a programming language that is primarily intended for writing smart contracts for blockchains based on Ethereum. Solidity syntax is based on JavaScript, which makes it easier to choose a language, and also borrows concepts from C++ and Python.

Despite the fact that it has many similar advantages as Simplicity, Solidity is designed specifically for use with the Ethereum blockchain network. Solidity allows programmers to write high-level code that is then compiled into a low-level machine language.

Solidity was created to work on the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) and allows users using the Ethereum digital transaction register to create smart contracts. For the most part, contract-oriented programming languages, such as Solidity, are largely borrowed from their predecessor, object-oriented programming. It was argued that languages such as Solidity were not required since languages such as C# and C++ could cope with smart abbreviations. However, with COP languages, there is additional functionality that optimizes these contracts to a higher level.

One advantage that Solidity borrows from other languages is the support of inheritance properties in constructions. Through inheritance, developers can create abstract classes with common definitions. Thanks to inheritance, hierarchical imaging is supported. An additional advantage of inheritance is the ability to use member variables in objects and classes. Predefined variables can be applied to various functions to get the desired result, which reduces the code load in contracts.

Solidity actively uses ABI. An ABI is an interface that facilitates communication between two binary programs or applications. It identifies factors such as binary formats through which information is transferred between blockchain applications, as well as the functions that will be called to perform the tasks of transmitting this data. ABIs allow their users to determine whether the data returned by a function is correct and of the correct type. This is very important for intelligent abbreviations, because it facilitates safe-type functions in the contract and ensures that the correct data type is returned in accordance with the compiler check.

Rholang

Rholang is a parallel programming language for smart contracts. Unlike the five languages listed above, which are object-oriented in design, Rholang is a functional language.

Functional programming is a separate way of thinking about programming. Instead of using variables to store values and changing these values during program execution, functional programming views programs as a sequence of mathematical functions that must be evaluated sequentially.

Although Rholang offers many of the same features as Simplicity and Solidity, Rholang works in a specifically functional context. The project is focused on blockchain developers who prefer to work in a functional programming environment.

Rholang is a process-oriented language: all calculations are performed using message sending. Messages are transmitted through "channels", which are more like message queues but behave assets, rather than queues. Rholang is completely asynchronous, in the sense that although the developer can read the message from the channel and then do something with it, he cannot send the message and then do something after receiving it. Please note that throughout this document the words “name” and “channel” are used interchangeably. This is due to the fact that the term name is used in rho-calculus (on which Rholang is based), however, since you can send and receive information about names, they are semantically similar to channels.

Reflection is now widely recognized as a key feature of practical blockchain programming languages, commonly known as “metaprogramming”. Reflection is a disciplined way to turn programs into data that they can work with, and then convert the changed data back to new programs. Java, C#, and Scala eventually took over as the primary function, and even OCaml and Haskell developed reflective versions. The reason is simple: on an industrial scale, programmers use programs to write programs. Without this computing lever, it would take too much time to create advanced industrial-scale programs.

Examples of blockchain projects

Blockchain ARK is written in JavaScript, supports JavaScript, Go, Python, C#, TypeScript, Kotlin, Ruby, Swift, PHP, consensus protocol - DPoS.

Blockchain ETHEREUM is written in Go, C++, Rust, supports Solidity, consensus protocols - PoW / PoS. Ethereum.

Blockchain EOS is written in C++, supports WebAssembly, C, C++, the consensus protocol is DPoS.

Blockchain HYPERLEDGER FABRIC written in Go, Java, JavaScript, Python, supports Go, Java, Kotlin, there is no consensus protocol.

Blockchain LISK is written in JavaScript, Node.js, supports JavaScript, consensus protocol - DPoS.

Blockchain QTUM is written in C++, Python, TypeScript, supports C++, Python, Rust, Go, Lua, consensus protocol - PoS.

Blockchain STRATIS is written in C++ and C#, supports C#, consensus protocol is PoS.

Conclusion

After reading about the six languages above, you are undoubtedly wondering which one is the most appropriate for your project. The answer depends on which product you need and which networks you will use. You must know what benefits has Hyperledger Fabric.

If you want to implement a new cryptocurrency, you can start with Simplicity. Bitcoin is based on the blockchain with test work, you can copy and create it using Simplicity. You can also work with the installed Ethereum blockchain using Solidity.