The Journey of a Solidity Developer in Blockchain

Frank's journey illustrates the chaotic evolution of a Solidity developer, driven by memes, money, or mission.

### The Journey of a Solidity Developer: From Excitement to Expertise
* 🚀 Many enter the blockchain world driven by **memes, money, or a mission**, each of which serves as a valid motivation for getting started in Solidity development.
* 🛠 Tools like Remix introduce new developers to Solidity, but confusion often arises due to the **prevalence of JavaScript frameworks**.
* 💡 After some initial learning, developers often find themselves **overwhelmed by complex codebases** like Maker DAO, prompting a shift to **more accessible environments** like Chad Foundry or Hardhat.
* 🔄 As developers become more familiar, they may discover new tools like Foundry, leading to a preference that feels like **"switching from toilet paper to a bidet."**
* 💪 The pursuit of optimization can become an obsession, driving developers to **understand every opcode and its gas cost**, often at the expense of their **well-being**.
* 📉 Many developers face challenges in the security space, where the **majority of their submissions may be invalidated**, leading to feelings of **inadequacy**.
* 🔍 As they explore new avenues like bug bounties or esoteric languages, some may find themselves drawn back to **EVM maximalism**, convinced of its **superiority** despite the potential for **broader opportunities**.
* 🎪 Ultimately, the journey through Solidity development is filled with ups and downs, culminating in a unique blend of **knowledge, ambition, and community engagement**.

GM. My name is Frank, and welcome to the evolution of a solidity developer. So, one of your friends gets you excited about the blockchain world because of one of three reasons: memes, money, or mission. You see a whole bunch of jokes online, and you go, Ha, that seems like a really silly industry. Guess what? You're right. Or you see a lot of these images of people posting how much money they're making online. Or you're into the mission. You love privacy, you hate the current monetary system, you don't like the governments, or you live in a bomb shelter and you just hate everybody. And that's why you get into it. Any one of those three reasons is great. So, you go online and you figure out, Hm, how do I get started with this solidity thing? And you'll find this tool called Remix. One of these pasty-faced lanky-ass dudes who's got nothing better to do than to make videos out of their bedroom will introduce you to this tool, or maybe ZK Atlas or something like that, and you

will love it, and you'll start to learn Solidity. You'll be like, Wow, transactions, blockchain, this is so amazing. You'll be a little bit confused 'cause every time you look up the Remix framework, you'll run into this No. JS garbage, but that's just because there's a JavaScript framework for everything. Cala Harris said she was running for president, Cala JS the next day. In fact, if you try to run Biden run in your CLI, you'll get a quick ASCII photo of Cala going, Not this year, Joe, not this year. After spending some time with Remix and maybe putting around crypto zombies, you'll feel pretty good about yourself until you look at the Maker DAO codebase and realize you have no idea what the hell you're doing, to which you will then move to the Chad Foundry or Hardhat developer. Now, this is actually where most people stay in the entirety of their career, and this is a great place to make money and to live and to really not move from here. That's why it's circled, and you can see if

you're astute. A lot of these arrows actually point back to this Chad developer right here. Let me adjust this 'cause the glare is in there. See, he's holding a little hammer and wearing a hard hat. Anyways, now if you came from the JavaScript world, you will actually start with hard hat because it be something familiar. Developer experience equals familiarity, right? But then one day as you're scrolling through your Twitter feed because that's where you live now or warp cast to which you only cast about how much you love warp cast. But if you're scrolling through your Twitter feed, maybe you'll run into a paradigm e and you'll be introduced to Georgios and then that's all you can see. And all you can see is all these people writing RM RM RM in their Twitter feeds. So you decide to give Foundry a try to which you will never be able to go back. Switching to Foundry is like switching from toilet paper to a bidet. You will be disgusted by anybody who uses anything else other than your precious bidet.

whenever you walk into a codebase, you will immediately go, I need to speak to your manager, and demand a found.com. I'll be put in the codebase immediately. Just the thought of smearing JavaScript all over your clean EVM codebase makes you sick, and you spit on anyone who uses hard hat, brownie, ape, or any other framework. Now, at this point, if you came into the remix world because of memes, that was the one of three that you chose, and you've made it over to here, you'll have to switch that to either Mission or money because you'll need a reason to justify to your partner why you're spending all this time saying GM, sir, to 15-year-olds on the internet. Now, like I said, most people live here, and this is where they stay, and they do well here, and if you're like most people, great, there's no reason to move beyond this. You just want to keep getting better, keep learning how to deploy more code, and deploy defensible code, but that won't happen. You'll start

thinking you're pretty damn good at what you do, and you want to be better than everyone else 'cause everyone else sucks, and you're in blockchain to win. There is no second best, so you say, I'm going to become an EVM Chad. I'm going to have hyper-performance code. And you move over to the optimizer, and this is where your life gets flipped upside down. You spend every waking moment glued and slunk down into your seat. Your posture starts to go to [__], and you develop a hunchback, and you dream in op codes. You'll start small by coding in assembly, and then eventually, you'll fall down the rabbit hole of huff and pure op codes and pure assembly, and you'll learn what every single op code does and how much gas it costs, and three gas versus two gas versus 800 gas, and you'll hate people who stick stuff in storage. You'll find yourself saying gas bad and horse good and Mady, and in fact, you'll even flush the toilet before you finish peeing because you want that

buffer flush because you want to save that half a second in performance of your urination pattern. And it's at this point in your career where you will actually start telling the Solidity compiler at your desk, like at your computer, how stupid it is and how much smarter you are than the compiler. You will literally say, I'll show you stack too deep, as you sit there and wait an extra 20 minutes 'cause you compile everything via IR now because it's going to be more performant or whatever. You'll spend 3 weeks to optimize a function to which you'll end up saving exactly one gas. Congratulations. People like JT, Riley, and Pascal will become your heroes, and maybe you'll even drop into The Eth Magicians Forum to start giving EIP advice about how push zero was the most phenomenal change to the EVM that's ever occurred and stuff like that. Now, unlike the hard hat Foundry Chad, this won't really make you any money, but it'll be fun, and you can hype up your super tiny

Niche group of buddies who are all gas optimizers with you until you realize for the most part it's a giant waste of your time, and after this point, you have a couple of different options. You can either go the route of esoteric alternates security or ascend to EVM maximalist. Let's talk about all of them in the order at which you'll do it. You'll probably start with security. You'll know exactly how much every opco costs, how performant everything is. You say, Hey, I'll be able to crush this security thing. So, you'll jump on one of the thousand competitive audit platforms and try your hand, only to have your submission that you spent two weeks on get invalidated by some 12-year-old who says it was out of scope. And then you'll feel real stupid about yourself and realize how much you still suck. A lot of people after that get humble smashed back up into here, but some persevere. Now, as you make your slog through these competitive audits, maybe trying some bug bounties.

From time to time, you'll get better and better, fueled by different people on Twitter posting about how they made $100,000 this month by doing 1,500 audits. Maybe you'll start posting about how dumb ceric is because they are the publicly acceptable litter box for the security community. You'll take the solved website and literally inject it into your veins so at the drop of a hat you can pull up some historical competition, whether it was valid or invalid, and use that as fuel to say, Hey, my submission is good on one of these competitive audit platforms because it was accepted in a previous competitive audit, to which you'll still get invalidated, of course. At some point, you'll probably say, I want to try some bug bounties, to which you will explore the depths of a codebase. You will go deeper, harder, longer, maybe a month long on a codebase just to make them more secure and help them out. You will be so happy when you finally find one. You will submit it. You will tell the team. You'll

be hyped. You'll beat your chest. You won't be able to sleep 'cause you're so excited waiting for them to respond. Thank you so much for finding this bug. We're going to be so much more secure. Here is your $100,000 payout. Only for them to say, Oh, we upgraded our code base, so it's not in there anymore. Invalidated. And then they will get kicked off the bug bounty platform. But even here, you still think form of verification is a joke. And for the nerds, you start seeing everything as a security vulnerability. Anytime your partner says, Hey, maybe we should go to the store, and you said, Uh-uh. You said, Maybe we should go to the beach. That's a hide. That's a crit. You're going down to which again you will be invalidated because your partner will threaten to leave. And you've realized that you haven't spoken to anybody else outside your apartment for the last 6 months. So take you're invalidated. The summary of this section is that 80% of the things you find will be invalidated but at

some point you maybe you decide hey I'm going to move off of security because I've gathered all these different skills and I'm a little bored so you start jumping into the esoteric languages or blockchain you try salana move Viper or maybe even just rust because rust is cool now and like all over the place and like everyone wants to code rust and you dabble for a while but most people end up leaving because as today there's still no money over there but maybe you'll be the one to have money appear over here and on the other side maybe say you know what screw it I'm going to become an evm maximalist I've gathered all this knowledge about solidity and I know the evm through and through and evm is the best because I know it the best you can see I didn't draw pupils on this guy because you're kind of blind if that's what you think if you ignore everything else and you only focus on what you know you'll never know if

there's something better out there, but you're an EVM maximalist. There's nothing better else out there. In the wise words of Michael Saylor, There is no second best. You said that about Ethereum, right? No, it was Bitcoin. Welcome to the Solidity clown show. This is your life, and I'm looking forward to seeing you on the other side. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. New videos every time I get around to making one.

Your Evolution as a Solidity Developer

Patrick Collins

Frank discusses the common reasons for entering the blockchain world: memes, money, or mission.

He highlights the importance of Remix and other tools in learning Solidity, as well as the confusion caused by JavaScript frameworks.

The Chad Foundry and Hardhat developer are identified as key career stages, with a potential shift to Foundry being a game-changer for those coming from the JavaScript world.

The Journey through a Codebase in Blockchain

Walking into a codebase, the speaker feels the urge to take charge and despises common frameworks.

Many people get stuck in a routine, aiming to improve their skills and code deployment.

The desire to be the best leads to a deep dive into hyper-performance coding and assembly, resulting in an obsession with op codes and gas costs.

Solidity developers often struggle with the compiler, spending extra time on optimizations that yield minimal gas savings.

They become engrossed in gas optimization, seeking validation from peers and forums, but ultimately question the value of their efforts.

Many developers then shift their focus to security, facing challenges in competitive audits and bug bounties, which can be humbling.

Bug bounty hunting can be fueled by social media success stories, leading to a cycle of competitive audits and invalidated submissions.

The pursuit of finding and reporting security vulnerabilities in codebases can be intense, often resulting in excitement and disappointment.

Ultimately, the experience can lead to feelings of isolation and the realization that a significant portion of findings will be invalidated.

The Journey of a Developer: From Security to Esoteric Languages

A developer may move away from security roles to explore esoteric languages and blockchain, seeking new challenges.

Despite the allure of languages like Rust and Solana, many struggle to find financial success in these areas.

The developer might then become an EVM maximalist, believing that their knowledge of Solidity and the EVM makes it the best option, but this narrow focus can lead to missed opportunities for growth and discovery.