For the last few weeks I have been taking the smart contracting course https://training.eos.io/ .
Thus far, I find the course informative and highly beneficial for learning EOSIO smart contract development. Currently, I am designing a digital land asset contract for a client which runs on EOSIO. Stay tuned on any project updates at https://web.tlccc.sg/ .
Rating: 💡💡💡💡 lightbulbs out of 5
Smart Contracts on EOSIO
The EOSIO blockchains utilize smart contracts written in C++, compiled to web assembly, with an application binary interface. The the language you will use to develop is C++, but with the nuanced constraints of blockchains on EOSIO.
Language: C++ (compiled into web assembly)
Transactions per Second: 3,000 and scalable higher
Block Times: 0.5 seconds
Time to Finality: 2 minutes approx (can be improved)
Contract Microsecond Limit: 30,000 u
All of these features add up to smart contract interactions that take place in less than a second. This has wonderful use cases for the world of applications such as near-instant blockchain interaction, verified with 3rd party API servers. Transactions reliably resolve in less than a second or two, and reach finality in 2 minutes.
Web Applications / Apps
The main highlights of EOSIO is that it is somewhat friendly to managed resource control for web applications compared to most other blockchains. This is due to the high throughput of transactions, plus the ability to have immediate feedback that a transaction is actually resolved to the blockchain in a fast manner.
In the web applications I have built, I submit the signed transaction via client, the client checks the blockchain for their transaction after 2 seconds via their API server. Upon finding the transaction, it tells the web server the transaction has been approved as real by the API server. The web server just has to verify directly with the API server, and payment / transacting is finalized in less than 3 seconds.
A great example of web app on EOS is https://voice.com , the back-end token is an EOS token.
Essential EOSIO Links:
EOS Studio (great IDE): https://www.eosstudio.io/
EOS Developer Portal: https://developers.eos.io/welcome/v2.1/welcome-to-eosio/index/
EOSIO Stack Exchange: https://eosio.stackexchange.com/
EOSIO Github: https://github.com/EOSIO
Other Links:
Telos Project (EOSIO Alternative chain): https://telos.net/
Telos is worth checking out for its amazingly low cost to transact and operate smart contracts on EOSIO. They are implementing dStor, GDPR compliant file storage on EOSIO.