Summary

We started this chapter by busting the myths about smart contracts. We realized that smart contracts cannot make decisions on their own and need an algorithmic trigger to accomplish such a feat. We also studied the original definition of a smart contract and realized the smart contract models lie on a spectrum ranging from encoded natural language to full automation. We learned that the role of code in a smart contract consists of a judicious mix of optimization, auditing, and adhering to compliance. We discussed gas-costly code patterns that remained unoptimized by the solidity compiler and categorized them into useless code and expensive loops. Then, we took a quick look at how oraaclization is used to feed authentic data and how an issue on the GitHub archive gave rise to the ERC20 standard. We concluded the chapter by deploying a decentralized voting application on...