Jitendra Chittoda - Mastering Blockchain Programming with Solidity: Write production-ready smart contracts for Ethereum blockchain with Solidity

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First published: August 2019

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ISBN 978-1-83921-826-2

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I have known Jitendra Chittoda for a good while. Together, we have audited a significant number of smart contracts for different blockchain platforms. Some of these contracts have been widely used, while others handle large amounts of funds.

Prior to working as a smart contract auditor, Jitendra was working as a developer, which gave him a broader perspective of the field, as he has observed it from a variety of standpoints. These multiple viewpoints of blockchain, and Ethereum in particular, have allowed him more general insights.

While many have heard about the power and potential of blockchain and smart contracts, I believe the blockchain journey is still in its infancy. As with many new technologies, a number of mistakes have been made. Some mistakes led to exploits, and some exploits were so large that they made news headlines. One of those attacks was the DAO reentrancy attack.

Given the novelty of the technology, people require guidance. Such guidance is required on different levels. Firstly, many people still do not sufficiently understand what blockchain is really about, what makes it special, and what differentiates it from regular databases. They don't understand the power of smart contractswhich are sometimes called programmable moneyand their potential impact on future businesses.

Secondly, while other people understand the power of blockchain, they do not see a clear path to building on top of it. They are not aware of the many small mistakes that can be made along the way, which range from overly expensive smart contracts to a complete loss of control. Hence, these people require detailed and explicit technical guidance.

Given Jitendra's background, he can provide a good overview and many technical recommendations that will not only speed up learning, but can also avoid costly and potentially project-threatening errors. This book starts off with introductions to blockchain before diving into Solidity, its details, its common applications, its most useful helpers, and its security practices.

Hubert Ritzdorf

Chief Technical Officer, ChainSecurity AG

JitendraChittoda is a blockchain security engineer at ChainSecurity. His day job is to perform security audit on smart contracts and expose security vulnerabilities in Solidity and Scilla contracts. He has also developed a non-custodial, decentralized, P2P lending contracts for ETHLend. The Solidity contracts that he has developed or audited handle over $100 million worth of cryptoassets. He also served as a tech and security advisor in various ICO projects.

Before finding his passion for blockchain, he coded in Java for over 11 years. He is the founder and leader of Delhi-NCR-JUG, a non-profit meetup group for Java. He holds a master's degree in computer applications and is regularly invited as a speaker at various conferences and meetups.

Natalie Chin is a blockchain developer, college professor, and technical blogger. She is currently teaching at George Brown College in Toronto, helping to lead the first blockchain college program in the world. At STK, she built a level-two scaling solution on Ethereum, allowing instant cryptocurrency purchases. Natalie won three prizes at ETHSanFrancisco, 2018, where her team, Lending Party, built a decentralized application allowing a CDP (cryptocurrency loan) to liquidate into a bank account instantly.