Learning Smart Contract Development using Okashi

This is a submission for the Build Better on Stellar: Smart Contract Challenge : Create a Tutorial

Your Tutorial

I worked on creating a tutorial that uses Okashi to explain How Stellar Smart Contract work and create different Smart contracts. This tutorial can be accessed here - link

What I Created

I'm excited to share with you what I've been working on. I've created a beginner-friendly tutorial on Stellar smart contract development using Soroban.

• I have included A step-by-step guide covering five different smart contracts, each introducing new concepts:

1. Basic "Hello World" contract
2. Multi-method contract with data storage
3. Increment counter with TTL management
4. User authentication in smart contracts
5. Persistent storage implementation

• An introduction to the Okashi platform for in-browser smart contract development and testing.
• Explanations of key Stellar-specific concepts like contract instances, Time-To-Live (TTL), and different types of storage (temporary, instance, persistent).
• A walkthrough of the smart contract deployment process on the Stellar testnet.
• Visual aids including screenshots and diagrams to enhance understanding.

I hope that this tutorial will help other developers like me to:
-Get started with Soroban without feeling overwhelmed

• Understand when to use different types of storage (trust me, it matters!)
• Learn best practices through real-world examples
• Feel confident deploying your first smart contract

Journey

Creating this tutorial has been quite the adventure!

When I first started learning about Stellar smart contracts, I found the existing resources a bit scattered. I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be great if there was a guide that took you from absolute beginner to deploying your first contract?" So, I decided to create the guide I wish I had when I was starting out. It helps in understanding basic concepts without doing any local setup.

I spent a lot of time experimenting with the Okashi. It's such a great tool for learning – being able to test your contract instantly is a game-changer. I wanted to make sure I showcased its capabilities in the tutorial.

Creating each example contract was a learning experience in itself. I'd write a contract, test it, realize I misunderstood something, and then revise. It was a cycle of continuous learning, which I've tried to distill into the tutorial.

Through this process, I've gained a much deeper understanding of Soroban and the Stellar ecosystem. Looking ahead, I'm excited to dive even deeper. I'm thinking about creating more advanced tutorials – maybe something on cross-contract calls or integrating with frontend apps.

This journey helped me to be a bit more confident on web3 development and Stellar. When I started writing this tutorial, I had lot's of confusion like how is backend handled? where is data stored? how can we interact with it? and more silly questions 😂

I'm proud that I can now write a contract and understand different contracts that I come across on github or community.

I would like to give credit to Stella, she was life saver for me. This tutorial is written because she helped me in clarifying all doubts I had as a beginner.

I hope my tutorial helps smooth the path for other new developers entering this exciting space. Happy coding, everyone!

Thank you and hope you give the tutorial a read too, here's the link - https://dev.to/shweta/crafting-stellar-smart-contracts-learn-by-creating-smart-contracts-in-browser-5gg5