Genesys of the dive (TL;DR)

Somewhere in Belgium, between beers, cows and sheeps,  is started my journey as NFT creator almost 1 year ago with the Headbangers and It's Nice collections on the protonmint market place. First and to be honnest, i choosed proton because it was cheap with idea to move on major platform when my skills set be more stronger. So proton protocol was more "I saw light thus i came in" than "What a wonderfull project" at first. By the time, i saw, with roadmaps release that i was betting (by chance) on the right horse,and the social network you are reading on this page validate this idea !

As a freelance fullstack developper i see that NFT ecosystem is a really great place to learn and of course earn. Coding skills is the icing on the cake, it will allow me to interact with the blockchain an create some cool stuff... 

But...

Techs i knew (PHP, JS, NODE, PYTHON, MQL...) wasn't really usefull to be really proactive in this new era of complex crypto engineers stuffs. Talking with API is our daily devs job, so quickly it wasn't enought to achieve really cool thinks.

Hurting myself with CPP

After digging in the docs and following the Proton Apps and Product telegram channel, i started the EOSIO training course to learn the base. Since proton is based on EOSIO protocol, learning the base was a good move. I found EOSStudio (link not provided because project is no longer maintened) wich is an IDE with Docker automation, two click and you are able to create and deploy smart contract on a local EOSIO node... What a dream ! But bugs on the EOSStudio software and sexual solications (yes you read it well) on the EOSStudio telegram channel, finally change the dev experience into nigthmare. 

Pleasing myself with TypeScript

At the same time Syed Jafri and Marlon (from proton team) release the information on the proton dev TG channel that the team has created a typescript package to develop Smat Contract.....

I was not really enthusiat with the idea, so i click to the link with no real expectation.... Just checked some code, and close the github page. 
"I want to create smart contract like a real devs... CPP is the only way", but i was fucking wrong...
My only CPP skills was based on the MQL language (the ugly language made by the ugly MetaTrader, the uglyiest trading software) and it was a pain in the ass to twist my brain to this odd language.

Few day laters i installed the typescript package, and start to learn it. 

It's not a just an NPM package, it's an eco system !

My first impression wasn't really great, but Syed introduce me to the proton-cli and i saw all the progress proton team have made in few month.
Proton-cli allow me to create a TS smart contract boiler plate in one line, and start to play with it, cool. But bugs and hair pulling just started at this point. I'm a devs so i can read code, dig in the lib and try to understand thing without doc, and never bother the code author.

Sometime, i was telling myself "drop it, it's not the solution you are looking for!", but i'm stuborn and finally aske to the code author about bugs i've met. Suddently i realised... "The proton TS smart contract wasn't a bad thing, it's just on beta version ! "
What a fucking chance, i'm on the early stage of something great ! 

At this point i started to exchange with the code author and report every bug i met, bug was fixed in no time and the team was able to add doc,  informations.

Devs lived happily ever after

Today is THE day ! This morning i was able to finalize the idea when i started my journey, create a smart contract for my new collection that is in production right now. 

From this experience, beyond the code, i learned how being involved on something new and don't give up because it's hard could be really rewarding! I suggest you to take a look to the amazing Proton Protocol Repo and share you experience with the devs community on twitter, and telegram. 

Till the next post, take care and be curious !