Mastering Corda

Chapter 3. Your First Corda Smart Contract

For those who want to get their hands dirty with code, this chapter is that starting point. In this chapter, we’re going to code and build a CorDapp, or Corda smart contract. Taking the time to go through this chapter will be extremely valuable, especially if you’re new to Corda or blockchain in general or come from the Ethereum or Hyperledger world and need to reorient yourself to Corda’s unique approach to blockchain.

Through the material presented in this chapter, you’ll gain significant insight into how a CorDapp is built and how a Corda instance (or node) works. You’ll also see a fully functional application running, albeit performing simplistic and trivial operations. The purpose of this chapter is to gain broad exposure to Corda and to start creating a mental model for what Corda looks like.

Corda is an extensive framework with multiple moving parts—machinery that’s built for the enterprise and fully prepared to deal with the complexities enterprises must contend with constantly. The demands of scalability, availability, performance, and flexibility and the need to integrate public or enterprise systems with one another means simple design ideas become complex systems, and fast. The typical enterprise is a smorgasbord of technologies, some old and some new, with layers and layers of integrations piled on. Technologies like Corda must play nice within these enterprise realities to gain adoption, regardless of their core value propositions. ...