The 10 Best Solidity Books You Should Read In 2022

1.7K

If you’re looking for a good book on Solidity, look no further!

We’ve compiled a list of the best books on the subject, so you can learn everything there is to know about this growing field.

The books listed here cover various levels of knowledge expected from readers, as well as a variety of focuses – from financial and industrial to online shopping and gaming. Each book explores blockchain technology and expands on the various uses of Solidity to create solid, effective, and safe DApps, or Decentralized Apps, for blockchain. ?

1.    Blockchain Quick Start Guide

One should understand blockchain technology before one can develop blockchain applications. Authors Xun (brian) Wu and Weimin Sun’s book Blockchain Quick Start Guide: A beginner’s guide to developing enterprise-grade decentralized applications offers beginners a quick introduction to blockchain technology and its features.

Between them, Wu and Sun have almost 40 years of experience in the design and development of blockchain, big data, cloud, UI and data architecture, modeling, science, and platform applications. Blockchain Quick Start Guide thoroughly introduces blockchains, discussing cryptography, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and IBM’s Hyperledger.

The book covers Ethereum fundamentals, such as smart contracts and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), gas – the cost of performing a transaction on Ethereum, and the evolution of blockchain, past to future. The book overviews Solidity programming, ending with a demonstration of how to write a smart contract using crowdfunding as a use case.

The book shows how to develop Ethereum blockchain applications and covers Web3.js Ethereum libraries, concluding with developing and testing decentralized apps (DApps). After a thorough look at IBM’s Hyperledger, the book offers blockchain use cases in the financial sector, civil services, supply chain, Internet of Things (IoT), and healthcare.

The book’s target audiences include business users and IT practitioners. Business users will benefit from the general discussions of the technology and the specific use case. IT persons can concentrate on the chapters dealing with Ethereum and Hyperledger and gain a deeper understanding of how to build blockchain applications.

IT users can download example code files from the publishers’ servers and use them for practice and learning. They can also adapt and use the code as use cases for themselves.

Code hosting platform github.com offers access to the latest versions of the book’s code files and code examples from the publishers’ other books.

2.    Truffle Quick Start Guide

Blockchain developers use three sources to write apps for the virtual machine of Ethereum, the decentralized blockchain. Solidity, a high-level Object-Oriented programming language, Web3 principles of decentralized, token-based data, and JavaScript programming language. These resources are integrated through a development environment named Truffle.

Nikhil Bhaskar’s Truffle Quick Start Guide: Learn the fundamentals of Ethereum development is a step-by-step guide for JavaScript developers who wish to write smart contracts and build decentralized apps on the Ethereum blockchain using Solidity. The book opens with an overview of Truffle and its integration of Solidity and Web3.

Initially, the reader builds small decentralized applications, followed by a thorough study of migration, testing, and combining Truffle with other JavaScript frameworks. The book discusses the testing tool Ganache’s command line version Ganache-CLI and two-node running apps Geth and Parity.

The second chapter deals with Truffle’s handling of Solidity and Web3. It’s a refresher on data types, arrays, structs, mapping, functions, types, and modifiers. The following section, dealing with practical ways to migrate smart contracts to test networks like Ropsten Ethereum, has an important section on common migration pitfalls.

The book is a hands-on technical primer for developers who are assumed to have a basic understanding of JavaScript, Web3.JS implementations, Ethereum, and blockchain.

3.    Quick Guide for Smart Contracts Creation and Deployment on Ethereum Blockchain

In this book, titled Quick Guide for Smart Contracts Creation and Deployment on Ethereum Blockchain, author Dr. Hedaya Mahmood Alasooly offers step-by-step instructions for developers and programmers who need practical directions on installing Ethereum on Windows before compiling and deploying smart contracts on JavaScript’s Virtual Machine.

Users are shown how to install Ganache and use it to test and deploy applications. They learn to use ERC20 token contracts and crowd sale with Token Wizard. It’s a practical instruction book that assumes readers know their way around the technology and programming conventions it uses.

The book refers users to REMIX IDE on the Ethereum website. Written in JavaScript, Remix is an open-source tool for those who wish to use Solidity to write and test contracts on the browser. The author guides users, line by line, through the programming process, describing the various available options.

The book offers no-frill instructions. It relies on users’ above-average programming knowledge in JavaScript, Python, etc., and allows users to deploy their code to the JavaScript VM. The book offers screengrabs showing the dialog a programmer has with the machine.

This is an excellent learning and practice book for users at the intermediate level of a journey to become proficient programmers.

4.    A Beginner’s Journey to Ethereum’s Smart Contracts

Before looking at Peter Wanjala’s A Beginner’s Journey to Ethereum’s Smart Contracts: Engineering Smart Contracts and DApps in Solidity and Web3.Js, please note that the book is out of print. This is the evident result of the popularity it has enjoyed since it was published in 2019. You may find the book in secondhand bookstores.

Smart contracts, Wanjala says, offer a solid alternative to existing contracts that rely on ‘hard copy’ in physical or scanned documents. Paper-based contracts exposed agreements covering financial actions, banking, commercial transactions, and legal contracts to slow deliveries, loss of data, and fraud.

In contrast, smart contracts offer a speedy, efficient, safe, and automatic way of dealing with contracts. It lowers administrative costs, reduces risk, and increases productivity. The book, therefore, shows how developers can develop DApps using Solidity and Web3.JS for Ethereum.

The book’s ten chapters follow the various processes involved in creating Decentralized Applications (DApps,) starting with an overview of blockchain and smart contracts, cryptography, and the use of Web3.js to create smart contracts. The following sections deal with smart contract events and Solidity functions, mappings, and structs.

Additional topics include Inheritance and deployment of smart contracts on Ethereum’s Virtual Machine (EVM), testing smart contracts on various platforms, and using InterPlanetary File Systems (IFPS) to host smart contracts. The last chapter offers a comprehensive, step-by-step description of DApps development.

5.    Solidity Smart Contracts

Solidity Smart Contracts: Build DApps In Ethereum Blockchain has an industry pedigree. Its author is Rangel Stoilov, a senior frontend developer at DappRadar. The company has a large collection of trending DApps, NFTs, and Protocols, assembled, analyzed, filtered, and put online for those who prefer using pre-developed content.

The book is a hands-on course in developing smart contracts using Solidity. The aim, says Rangel Stoilov, is to develop quality smart contracts while incurring the lowest possible operations costs. After a review of the history of the Ethereum Blockchain, users get to know the mechanics of the Ethereum Blockchain.

After creating a wallet, users are introduced to cryptography, block analysis, and gas prices. It introduces various test networks and teaches how to open test accounts and procure test-net ether to be used for developing, testing, and deploying smart contracts. The book provides simply defined and described best cases for developers.

Hands-on instruction includes the creation and protection of wallets using Metamask. General best practices in securing one’s crypto assets. Study the essentials in using Solidity language, including on-the-fly testing of the smart contract with Remix. The book offers assignments for understanding and practice.

6.    Ethereum Blockchain Developer

Authors Thomas Wiesner and Colleen Wtorek make it clear that they mean business. Ethereum Blockchain Developer – The Bootcamp is a no-frills training program for developers, which includes, in addition to the basics, development workflows for smart contracts written in Solidity for Ethereum blockchain.

The program is based on ‘how-to’ building blocks, teaching users to create, test, and troubleshoot smart contracts before deploying them to various platforms. In addition, one learns how to adapt smart contracts to specific industry needs. Central to the Bootcamp is accessing and using necessary tools like Remix, Ganache, Metamask, Truffle, and Solidity.

A central topic in the Bootcamp is digital notary technology that aims to assist and facilitate the notarization of smart contracts. Blockchain technology can guarantee data integrity. While human notary public remains a legal requirement, digital notarization guarantees two major aspects of documentation safety: tamper resistance and nonrepudiation.

The book is not targeted at novices. Participants must have basic knowledge of JavaScript, HTML, C++, Java, and data types. Basic knowledge of git repositories and Solidity is an advantage. Boot campers should also have a computer carrying a Windows, Mac, or Linux operating system.

7.    Mastering Blockchain

Imran Bashir’s Mastering Blockchain: A deep dive into distributed ledgers, consensus protocols, smart contracts, DApps, cryptocurrencies, Ethereum, and more is an 816-page comprehensive study of blockchain. The book targets technologists, business executives, students, and anyone who wants to grasp blockchain technology theories and practices.

The book’s 22 chapters offer a detailed map of the blockchain landscape, from essential principles like decentralization, symmetric and public-key cryptography, consensus algorithms, bitcoin, blockchain mining, networks and payments, wallets, alternative coins, smart contracts, and Ethereum.  

The book’s second part leads to developing smart contracts and creating decentralized applications (DApps). There is a comprehensive study of existing development tools, frameworks, libraries, and languages. Central to these are Solidity, Web3, and Geth, using Truffle to develop DApps, Serenity, and Hyperledger.

Other components discussed are the pros and cons of tokenization on a blockchain, offerings, and the various standards used to differentiate the various tokens according to the blockchain on which they are built. This section ends with an overview of non-currency-based blockchains in the Internet of Things (IoT), Government, health, finance, and media.

Finally, the book analyses enterprise blockchain, its use cases, architecture, design issues, and blockchain in the cloud. Summing up, this massive resource book discusses scalability, privacy/anonymity, and a look at current and future blockchain landscape, including Artificial Intelligence (AI).

8.    Mastering Blockchain Programming with Solidity

Production-ready code may be sent to the client. This means that the development was completed, the code was tested, bugs were fixed, the code was improved, and embedded documentation was added. Lastly, the code was staged in a testing environment where automated testing was performed.

Jitendra Chittoda’s Mastering Blockchain Programming with Solidity: Write production-ready smart contracts for Ethereum blockchain with Solidity will attract professional software developers aiming to join an ever-growing, multi-industry trend where software developers start a career writing production-ready smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps) on Ethereum blockchain.

At the core of the process is Solidity, and the book offers an introduction to the language, covering source file layout, the structure of a contract, and Solidity data types. A discussion on variables, units, and functions follows, where error handling, cryptographic functions, and contract-related functions are introduced and covered in detail.

Section 2 of the book covers development tools like MetaMask and Remix, Ganache, and the Truffle framework. The book introduces code quality tools like Suraya. Section 3 deals with ERC standards and libraries and ends with the first development challenge, where users build their tokens.

The book’s last section includes detailed, hands-on code-writing instruction, ending with ‘Tips, Tricks, and Security Best Practices. The book is the kind of resource professionals are sure to keep close at hand.

9.    Building Games with Ethereum Smart Contracts

This book, for a change, deals with a different way of implementing smart contracts. Young American entrepreneurs Kedar Iyer and Chris Dannen’s book Building Games with Ethereum Smart Contracts: Intermediate Projects for Solidity Developers is a game designing an intermediate project for Solidity developers.

The idea behind the book is that developers can practice and grow their knowledge of Solidity as they use smart contracts to build games that can be deployed and played by friends and colleagues, using real ether! Iyer and Dannen promise that the games are “provably fair and auditable.”

The book discusses Ethereum, blockchain, Solidity, and game theory before introducing the first game chapter on Ponzi and pyramid schemes, ending with users writing an actual Ponzi smart contract. Next are lotteries, another perfect blockchain fit. The chapter tackles the ultimate challenge to any lottery, the generation of random numbers.

In prize puzzles, another great use case, someone poses a question or a riddle and locks a prize in a smart contract that may only be opened by providing the correct answer to the question, unlocking the contract. Prediction Markets pose a yes/no question about an event and accept bets on the possibility of the event occurring.

Lastly, there is blockchain-based gambling, which promises to offer fair odds. The book offers two gambling games – Satoshi dice and Roulette.

10. Building on Ethereum

Blockchain is everywhere, and an ever-growing number of developers are deeply involved in software architecture, engineering, and coding. This book is not for them. Instead, it aims to assist developers who had finally jumped off the ‘let’s wait-and-see fence to set up a project, build and test their contracts and deploy them to public networks.

In Building on Ethereum: With Solidity and React, Cliff Hall uses his experience building Ethereum smart contracts with Solidity and handling them with React, a development tool used to build user interfaces and UI. In-app Pro Shop, the learning project in the book, supports in-app purchases via Ethereum. Another in-app-based environment in the book is CryptoKitties.

The learnings Hall shares relate to his thought processes, reflections on trials and errors, decisions he had to make, and obstacles he overcame during the development process. These reflect both pros and cons of blockchain as a vehicle for in-app purchases and serve as a powerful learning experience.

On the way, the book answers questions developers ask at the start of their journey. The questions relate to the programming language they would use (Solidity) and the blockchain protocol (peer-to-peer networks through nodes on the internet.) The blockchain framework to use (Ethereum) and the tool for user interface and UI (React).