Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

Greetings, Player!

We are the Stellar Development Foundation's developer relations team, and we are proud to present to you Fast, Cheap & Out of Control!

What is FCA00C?

Fast, Cheap, & 0ut 0f Control is an immersive and adventurous educational experience that challenges coding norms and equips you with the essential skills to conquer blockchain development.

Play the gamified tutorial, tackle challenging problems in RPCiege, and compete with other driven developers in heart-pounding console games as you master the art of building smart contracts with Soroban on the Stellar network.

What’s a “Smart Contract?”

Forget your conventional understanding of a contract. We’re not talking about the mundane legal paperwork for renting an apartment. Instead, picture a set of promises. These promises are publicly declared, outlining the precise events or actions that must be fulfilled for the contract to execute.

Now, here’s where the “smart” element comes into play. These contracts are self-executing and are run and stored in a digital environment. Assembling these smart contracts on a blockchain leverages the security and features already built into the underlying protocol.

What is Soroban?

Soroban is an open-source smart contracts platform that runs on the Stellar blockchain and is designed to be sensible, scalable, and developer-friendly. While it is a complete and batteries-included smart contract service, it’s important to note that Soroban is currently in development and is live on a shared test network. Expect changes and growth as it evolves.

With the preview release of Soroban, you get exclusive access to the initial version of the smart contracts environment, a Rust SDK, a CLI, and an RPC server. Jump in to get an up-close view of this emerging platform. Your participation helps identify issues, refine usage expectations, and develop the tooling that will shape the future of Soroban and the ecosystem.

What is the Stellar network?

Stellar is a layer-1 open-source, decentralized, peer-to-peer blockchain network that provides a framework for developers to create applications, issue assets, and connect to existing financial rails. The Stellar network is designed to enable creators, innovators, and developers to build projects on the blockchain that can interoperate with each other.

Soroban is designed to seamlessly integrate with the Stellar network. However, it can operate autonomously and doesn’t have any mandatory dependencies on the Stellar network.

What do I need to know to start?

You’re eager to dive in? Fantastic! Here is an overview of what you can expect as you embark on this exciting journey.

Rust

To begin with, Soroban smart contracts are written in Rust. Don’t worry if you’re not an expert just yet – it’s not a prerequisite. However, having some familiarity with Rust would be advantageous. Even if you’re new to this language, a general understanding of coding will greatly assist you along the way.

Here are a couple places to get you started learning Rust:

Rustlings: An interactive collection of exercises to quickly get you up to speed.
The Rust Book: This is much more in-depth, more thorough, and more technically written. Great reference!

Soroban

As previously mentioned, Soroban is a smart contracts platform that works alongside the Stellar blockchain and is currently live on a shared test network.

You can learn more about building on Soroban using the following resources:

Soroban Documentation: The definitive source for all things Soroban. Here, you'll find both high-level concepts and articles, as well as specific how-to guides for Soroban.

The Stellar network

As mentioned earlier, Soroban is being developed for use with the Stellar network, although it can be utilized alongside other software solutions. The beauty of participating here is that you don’t need to be a Stellar network expert. In fact, you don’t even need prior familiarity with it. Even if this is your first encounter with the Stellar ecosystem, that’s perfectly fine!

If you’re interested in delving deeper into the world of Stellar, it can provide valuable context and give you a broader understanding of how Soroban fits within the larger Stellar network. Here are some resources that can expedite your knowledge of the Stellar ecosystem:

Stellar Docs: Learn about Stellar network fundamentals and the various ways you can use the network in the comprehensive developer documentation.
Stellar Quest: A gamified course where you complete a series of quests that teach you the fundamentals of Stellar network operations.

The people behind FCA00C

Our team at Fast, Cheap & 0ut 0f Control is supported by the Stellar Development Foundation and various community members. We’re a group of individuals dedicated to creating the most engaging, accessible, and exciting blockchain educational materials imaginable.

With diverse backgrounds and a global presence, we bring together a wealth of expertise and experience. Connect with us online to discover more about our endeavors!

What's with the name?

You can look at it two different ways:

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control is an intriguing documentary released in 1997 that dives into the lives of four men with eccentric careers. The film draws its name from a 1989 paper published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society titled “Fast, Cheap and Out of Control: A Robot Invasion of the Solar System” (which sounds pretty exciting, right?) We feel this mantra encapsulates our core objective with this program: incentivizing developers to explore and discover the best approaches to enhance the scalability and efficiency of Soroban contracts.
fca00c is also a valid hex color code (it's this beautiful shade of orange, by the way). Given the perfect match between its name and color, we couldn’t resist using this shorthand for our project.

Where can I find help?

If you need assistance getting started or hit a dead end, we are here to help! Join our vibrant Discord community, where you’ll find a friendly, supportive, and knowledgeable group of people ready to provide guidance and support every step of the way.

The Stellar Developer Discord Server: If you’re an experienced developer, you’ll find yourself right at home on this server, where developers from all over the world come together to engage in discussions, share ideas, exchange best practices, and more as they build on the Stellar network and Soroban. Moreover, you’ll have the opportunity to interact with the folks writing the Soroban software, who are often readily available to answer your questions and provide valuable insights.Talk about going right to the source!

ABOUT FCA00C