Serverless is the jump before Ethereum Smart Contracts

It can be really difficult to get started with Ethereum Smart Contracts as there is so much new things to learn if you are already just getting started with Ethereum. Smart Contracts also needs to be developed in a new language Solidity that is like JavaScript but is statically typed, so not really the same.

Smart Contracts is really awesome because it promises applications that are “unstoppable”, but when you begin to look at it you will find several things that make it difficult to develop for if you are coming from a normal programming framework like Express.js or Ruby or Rails.

Reasons like:

It is very difficult for others to execute your functions

To share what you built with a friend you have to send him this hash that your Smart Contract got and it is not something you can tell him out loud as it is too long.

And there is no good interface

The Ethereum Clients is the interface to your Smart Contracts, so it really depends on what “browser” your friend use. They can be using the Ethereum Wallet app or using a still very new app called Mist which not that many people use yet.

Deploying literally cost money

as you have to spend Ether currency to deploy it and if you friend wants to execute your function so does he/she have to!

But one things serverless and smart contracts has in common is that they are all based on functions and this can be super powerful if you can see this connection! That means that you can begin to think in the way a Smart Contract can be built, but still have all the benefits a normal Virtual Machine has, when developing and deploying with serverless functions.

So go build your next project as a serverless project if you want to develop for Ethereum and you can possible port your application straight to Ethereum in a couple of years!