Ethereum Developer Blockchain Training

Blockchain and Smart Contract Basics 

• What is Blockchain and how does it work?
• Centralized vs. Decentralized vs. Distributed
• Blockchain vs. Databases
• Bitcoin vs Ethereum
• What are Smart Contracts?
• How are Smart Contracts used?

Smart Contract Programming Basics 

• Advantages and Drawbacks of Smart Contracts
• Layer 1 vs. Layer 2
• High-Level Language vs. Low-Level
• Languages in Comparison Solidity, Vyper, others
• Smart Contracts with Solidity
• The Layout of a Solidity File
• LAB TASKS (Lab 1)
  • Types of Variables in Solidity
  • Function/Variable Visibility
  • Smart Contract Constructors
  • Setter- and Getter-Functions

Understanding Decentralized Information and Web3 

• Blockchain Access structures and Architectures 
  
  • Remote Blockchain Nodes vs. Local Blockchain Nodes
• Blockchain Access vs. centralized RESTful API
• Understanding Web3.js API
• Understanding Transactions and Consensus
• Private Keys, Public Keys and Signatures
• Understanding privacy on pubic Blockchains
• Understanding the architecture of KeyStore’s such as MetaMask or MIST
• LAB TASKS (Lab 2 – Ropsten Test-Ether and MetaMask) 
  
  • Installing and Configuring MetaMask
  • Obtaining Ropsten (or Testnet) Ether
  • Tracing Ether through Block-Explorers
  • Understanding Infura

Basics of Ethereum and the EVM 

• Ethereum Denominations
• Understanding EVM and the ABI Interface
• Calls vs. Transactions
• Concurrency and Events
• Use cases of Events
• LAB TASKS (Lab 3 Web3JS Operations + Lab 4 Events) 
  
  • Install and Use Ganache
  • Work with Web3.js
  • Work with Infura
  • Define Events
  • Listen and React to Events
    

Solidity Advanced: Modifiers, Mappings, Structs and Inheritance 

• Understanding Functions, Mappings and Structs
• When to use Modifiers
• Libraries vs. Inheritance
• LAB TASKS (Lab 5 Modifiers, 6 Mappings and Structs, Lab 7 Inheritance) 
  
  • Understand and use Modifiers
  • Add Mappings and Structs
  • Use Inheritance to increase auditability

Understanding Deployment and Costs 

• Understand Development and Deployment Cycles
• Understanding Solidity Compilation and Deployment
• Gas and Gas-Costs
• Upgradeability and Data Migration Techniques
• Understand the moving Parts: Compiler, Blockchain, API, KeyStore
• LAB TASKS (Lab 8 Deployment, Lab 9 Tie it together) 
  
  • Changing from strings to bytes (save gas)
  • Deploy using Ropsten Test-Ether
  • Understand the difference when using a real Blockchain
  • Use a fully functioning distributed Application

Mining, Proof of Work vs. Proof of Authority 

• What is Mining in PoW? 
  
  • How blocks are generated
  • PoW vs. PoA (vs. PoS)
• Understanding Go-Ethereum or Ganache/TestRPC for local development
• Understanding Private Blockchains vs. Public Blockchains
• LAB TASKS (Lab 10 Mining) 
  
  • Installing and using Ganache
  • Installing and using Go-Ethereum
  • Connecting to Ganache/Go-Ethereum from Remix and Web3.js
  • Interact with the Blockchain from HTML/JS

Current Problems, Solutions, Outlook, Serenity 

• Ethereum Now and Ethereum Future
• Where we are at with Ethereum 
  
  • Homestead
  • PoW
• Where Ethereum is heading to 
  
  • Serenity
  • PoS + PoW to PoS
  • Sharding
• Recommended Newsletters/Groups

Working in Teams, Testing and Versioning 

• Understanding what Truffle is
• Comparison to Embark
• How Manage Code for Teams
• Understanding Migrations
• Understanding Unit-Testing with Truffle
• LAB TASKS (Lab 11 Truffle setup, Lab 12 Truffle Unit Testing) 
  
  • Download and Setup Truffle
  • Adapt the standard Truffle-Project
  • Write A Unit Test

IPFS and distributed File-Storage 

• What is IPFS
• Comparison between IPFS, FileCoin, Swarm, Sia, Storj
• LAB TASK (Lab 13 – IPFS) 
  
  • Install and work with IPFS
  • Upload and retrieve a fully decentralized file

Bonus Section: Compilation 

• LAB TASK (Lab 14 – Compilation)
  • Compile a Solidity File with a command-line compiler