The Best Web3 Development Practices for Dapp Developers

‍

The blockchain ecosystem is a fast-moving space, and so are the best practices for developing on it. The decentralized app (Dapp) development landscape is still changing rapidly, with new tools, frameworks, and standards being introduced regularly.

Read Case Study

New best practices also emerge as blockchain developers solve common problems more efficiently than before. In this blog post we’ll explore some of the most important best practices for Dapp development in general and with Web3 technologies specifically. Reading about these principles might help you speed up your own Dapp Web3 development or even see new opportunities in old projects you’ve abandoned previously.

Know your Environment

Knowing how different technologies work together is crucial for efficient Dapp development. For example, you should understand what the ERC-20 standard is and how the Metamask browser extension for Ethereum works. You should know how to write an Ethereum smart contract, how to integrate a front-end application with the smart contract, and how to deploy the project to IPFS or Swarm. You should also understand how gas fees work and what happens if they are not paid. Knowing the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem can save you time and effort.

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel if someone has done it before. When building your own decentralized application, you might have to use or write your own implementation of the most common protocols, like HTTP, JSON, or IOTA. Understanding the implementation of these protocols will help you find the best practices for your implementation.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

The blockchain ecosystem is a great place to find reusable code, such as open-source smart contracts and libraries. The decentralized web is a young technology, so a lot of developers are still writing new code. This means there’s plenty of existing code available for you to use.

Even if you need to write new code, you can look for inspiration from the best practices of other decentralized app developers in your space. The DappHub network hosts open-source code for various decentralized apps, for example. There are also many code repositories for open source apps available on platforms like Github.

Use Events, Not Requests

To decouple front-end applications from the back-end, you can employ events rather than requests when communicating with the smart contract. When significant changes occur, such as the smart contract receiving a transaction or the user manually modifying their settings, you may publish an event. You may then subscribe to these events in the front-end application and update the interface appropriately.

And because the communication between the front-end and the smart contract is done through events, you can later implement a completely different interface or choose a completely different technology stack. This is especially useful when creating a wallet for your decentralized application. There are many different ways to implement a wallet, but using events instead of writing requests will help you achieve separation of concerns and make your wallet extensible.

Keep it Simple

From the start, you should focus on creating a simple solution. There’s no need to over-engineer a decentralized application, especially if it’s a proof-of-concept. Dapp development is different from Web3 development. For example, you don’t need a database to store data and most Dapp users won’t notice if you don’t have a function to edit or delete an existing record. You don’t need to build a fully-featured user interface, either. A simple user interface that helps potential users understand your product and easily interact with your smart contract can be enough.

Ethereum is not Evil (at least for now)

As we already mentioned, decentralization has its benefits, but also some drawbacks. If you want to build a decentralized application, you will have to deal with some trade-offs. You can’t always control the data stored on the blockchain, for example. It’s important to understand that you can’t delete the data or change it. This means you have to be careful when designing your application.

You can’t always trust the data you receive, either. Some decentralized applications can be manipulated by their creators, so you have to be able to detect and ignore false information. Keep in mind that the blockchain is still a relatively young technology. There are many unresolved issues, such as scaling, low adoption rates, and low transaction fees. You shouldn’t expect the same level of trust and reliability from decentralized applications that you have from centralized platforms.

Solidity is a Language for Humans — Don’t Forget It

Writing a smart contract from scratch is hard and expensive. Most Dapp developers will just copy paste a smart contract written by someone else and then try to modify it for their needs. If you want to build a fully autonomous application, however, you will eventually have to write your own smart contract.

This means you need to know how to write code in Solidity, the most popular smart contract programming language. There are many blog posts and books that can help you learn how to write code in Solidity. Don’t forget that Solidity is a programming language for humans. This means you shouldn’t try to create a super complex application right away.

Build with Solidity and Typescript Together

There are lots of tools and frameworks available to help you build a decentralized application. You can choose the most suitable technology stack and integrate it with your project. This means you can use Typescript, the most popular typed superset of JavaScript, to write your front-end code.

Typescript brings many benefits when you’re building decentralized applications: You can easily create a wallet or a wallet manager using Typescript, for example. You don’t need to create your own implementation of the standard protocols for communication between the front-end and the smart contract. There are also Typescript libraries that provide a high-level interface to work with specific decentralized apps, such as the Augur decentralized oracle or the Oracles Network. This means you can use a single interface to interact with multiple decentralized applications.

Conclusion

The blockchain ecosystem is a fast-moving space, and so are the best practices for developing on it. The decentralized app (Dapp) Web3 development landscape is still changing rapidly, with new tools, frameworks, and standards being introduced regularly.

New best practices also emerge as blockchain developers solve common problems more efficiently than before. The key to success in this new world is keeping up with the latest news and trends in the industry. Knowing your environment and what other developers are doing is crucial for efficient Dapp development. Don’t forget to keep it simple and Ethereum is not evil. Finally, build with Solidity and Typescript together.