Our Choice of Reach as a Tool for Building Blockchain Applications
Intro and definition
Before we begin a quick introduction of who we are and what Reach is would be appropriate.
My name is Afiniki Mhya and my partner for today is Prince Charles-Amachree. We're both web developers that began the transition to blockchain development in august 2021 and have never looked back.
Reach: Reach is a tool for blockchain development. It encompasses a Programming language, a compiler, and a verification engine with some extra features all in one. It is multi-chain and allows the building of blockchain applications on multiple chains. That's to say it's blockchain agnostic. You can learn more about reach here
Our journey as web developers
For Prince, web development had begun in the year 2019. While Afiniki it had started in 2020. Both of us had started with the basics which happened to be HTML and CSS. We gradually worked our way up to JavaScript and chose the path of React as a framework for most of our projects which were done individually. Venturing into dApp was not planned but it happened late in the year 2021, It looked and seemed like a lot of work which was very discouraging until we found ourselves in a Choice coin hack which we had done individually. We worked together on a team for the first time on the women who code bounty hack to produce the Pyramid Scheme project.
Our project
The name of the project we decided on is called the Pyramid Scheme. The Pyramid Scheme is an application that enables individuals to grow their financial network through a simple process of connecting an Algorand wallet address registering with a certain amount and referring only two people at a time, and those two that have been referred get to refer two other individuals of their choice and also register with a certain amount thus the progression of the Pyramid Scheme. Another interesting fact about the Pyramid Scheme is that 10% of each referral goes to the upstream. We picked this project because it empowers individuals to develop their network financially through referrals.
Below is schematic description of the Pyramid Scheme.
The above figure gives us a general view of the application flow, rules and participants.
About our experience
The Reach platform gives a programming language, compiler and verification engine (which ensures our programs are mathematically correct) for creating decentralized applications. Reach enables us to build applications twice as fast while checking for the correctness of the program. The time we have had so far to experience Reach has made us realize how fast and safe the platform is for creating applications. With this sort of provision on the Reach platform, less time can be spent on securing a contract and more time spent on increasing the user's experience.
Given unlimited time and funding:
Connecting with our current status as university students, given limitless time and financing we would extend our skills to building a Ticket application that permits students of the university to purchase tickets for occasions, for example, parties, shows, food fests, motion pictures, games, and so on through the application. The thought of the Ticket application could eliminate all forms of fraud and stolen tickets for events. Every ticket on the application will be a fixed amount and the will only be accessed by the individual who purchased the Ticket, due to unique identifications that will be established on the application. Furthermore, the Ticket project could be applied to events outside school settings.
Lastly, regardless of the difficulties, experienced while working with Reach, the competition was very exciting and posed a challeng e to us. We have been able to access new aspects of programming that will change our lives positively. We look forward to developing our current understanding of Reach by developing more applications.