Introduction

Welcome to this tutorial on writing and deploying basic smart contracts. Our goal is to introduce you to the world of blockchain development by guiding you through the process of creating your own smart contract and deploying it to the Ethereum blockchain.

Throughout this tutorial, you will learn:
- The basics of blockchain and smart contracts.
- How to write a smart contract in Solidity.
- How to deploy your smart contract to the Ethereum network.

Before starting this tutorial, you should have a basic understanding of programming concepts and familiarity with a high-level language such as JavaScript or Python. Familiarity with blockchain concepts is beneficial but not required.

Step-by-Step Guide

Smart Contracts and Blockchain

A smart contract is a self-executing contract with the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller being directly written into lines of code. The code and the agreements contained therein exist across a distributed, decentralized blockchain network.

Writing a Smart Contract in Solidity

Solidity is a high-level language for implementing smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. It's statically typed, supports inheritance, libraries, and complex user-defined types.

Deploying the Smart Contract

Deploying a smart contract to the Ethereum network involves sending a transaction to the network that includes the contract's code.

Code Examples

Simple Smart Contract

Below is a simple smart contract written in Solidity. This contract is called SimpleStorage and it stores a single uint, a variable type for non-negative integers.

pragma solidity ^0.5.0;

contract SimpleStorage {
    uint storedData;

    function set(uint x) public {
        storedData = x;
    }

    function get() public view returns (uint) {
        return storedData;
    }
}

In this contract, set is a function that takes a uint and stores it in the storedData variable. get is a function that returns the currently stored uint.

Deploying the Smart Contract

To deploy the contract, you can use a framework like Truffle, which simplifies the process. First, install Truffle using npm:

npm install -g truffle

Then, initialize a new Truffle project:

mkdir simple-storage
cd simple-storage
truffle init

Next, add your contract to the contracts/ directory of your Truffle project and then add a migration in the migrations/ directory to handle deploying your contract.

Summary

In this tutorial, we've learned the basics of smart contracts and how to write and deploy one using Solidity and Truffle. This is just the beginning of what's possible with smart contracts and blockchain technology.

For further learning, I recommend exploring more complex contract interactions, learning about gas and transaction fees on the Ethereum network, and looking at other tools and libraries in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Practice Exercises

1. Modify the SimpleStorage contract to store a string instead of a uint. Deploy this contract using Truffle.
2. Write a contract that represents a simple counter. It should have a function to increment and decrement the counter, as well as a function to get the current count. Deploy this contract using Truffle.
3. Write a contract that represents a basic voting system. It should allow accounts to cast votes for candidates, keep track of the total votes for each candidate, and prevent accounts from voting more than once. Deploy this contract using Truffle.

Remember, the more you practice, the more comfortable you'll become with these concepts and tools. Happy coding!