EOSIO Quickstart Web IDE: Start Building on EOSIO in Minutes

Getting started with a new technology always poses challenges. There are often new languages, development patterns to learn, and hardware prerequisites to meet for setting up a development environment. Blockchain development in particular has certain resource requirements that must be met to run a full node, replay a chain, or test smart contracts. These issues present obstacles for new developers who are interested in exploring blockchain technology. As EOSIO grows, we are working to create new tools and libraries that make EOSIO development faster, easier, and more accessible to developers around the world.

To that end, a significant goal of our engineering effort is to make it possible for anyone to rapidly deploy their blockchain projects with EOSIO software. The EOSIO Quickstart Web IDE reduces barriers to entry for new developers, so they can get started in minutes, share, and collaborate on EOSIO projects.

Currently, building on EOSIO entails a multistep setup process, and a powerful computer to run a full blockchain node. For anyone just getting started, this process begins with installing and configuring EOSIO. After, EOSJS must be installed and configured for developing web applications. It is often difficult to establish a clear workflow as these processes take many steps consisting of numerous components. There is also the issue of computing power; to run a full node requires a computer with at least 16GB of ram, although 32GB or more is recommended, enormous amounts of disk space, and a fast CPU.

Reducing Obstacles for Blockchain Developers

EOSIO 2 introduces alpha support for the EOSIO Quickstart Web IDE, a one-click web-based IDE that runs in a browser and is designed to radically simplify the developer experience. With this new tool, all it takes to start building is a single click to launch a fully functional EOSIO development environment in a browser.

The EOSIO Quickstart Web IDE empowers anyone to dive right into programming C++ smart contracts and EOSJS based web applications. This new IDE is integrated with the source code, so a developer can immediately commit any changes they make from demo applications directly into their own personal GitHub. From there, developers may collaborate together in any way they choose. A personal copy of the blockchain is provided along with the ability to quickly edit and modify the included talk.cpp smart contract and the react web-app coded in index.tsx. Once developers fork the source repo, they can setup multi-user push access to their personal forks and enable several developers to collaborate in real-time.

Getting started is easy. Simply head to the open-source EOSIO Quickstart Web IDE GitHub repository and follow the accompanying instructions.

There are a number of features we’re researching that may be supported by the EOSIO Quickstart Web IDE in the future. These include support for Swift and Java application development, a local Theia based version to secure intellectual property, additional UI features, a table explorer to allow developers to interact with data. Considerations are being made for the integration of web-based block explorers, DEMUX, and History Tools. The EOSIO Quickstart Web IDE is perfect for students studying blockchain, hackathon participants, or new developers learning EOSIO. 

Stay Connected

The EOSIO Quickstart Web IDE is one of many projects from Block.one that benefits from community research, testing, and input. If you would like to offer feedback and work more closely with our team to improve EOSIO for developers, you can send our developer relations team an email at [email protected].

Stay up-to-date with future announcements, by subscribing to our mailing list on the EOSIO website. We are excited to be regularly improving the usability of the software for EOSIO developers as we continue to lay a foundation for the mass adoption of blockchain technology.

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