TEZOS INSIGHT 6: What is Michelson?

Hi All,

It's Rooney again for this week's TEZOS INSIGHT.

As we studied about OCaml for the last couple of weeks, for this week, I brought Michelson for you. Both are programming languages for developers to create new platforms and development base, but what is a difference between them?

Before talking about Michelson, I will give you the answer to this question!

OCaml is a language that Tezos created the core system of Tezos itself while Michelson is another language that Tezos made smart-contract for enabling all developers to make new Dapps that would work for dragging a number of people into Tezos eco-system.

Ok, if this is enough for you to learn about Michelson, let us start to get into it now!

[What is Michelson?]

Michelson is the domain-specific language used to write smart contracts on the Tezos blockchain. This language is stack based and strongly typed. Michelson was designed to facilitate formal verification, allowing users to prove the properties of their contracts. Over time, the language will change, especially in the time leading up to the launch. This website is a repository of examples and tutorials, showing how to get started and work with the Michelson programming language. (quoted from https://www.michelson-lang.com)

[Why Michelson?]

Michelson is not like normal languages providing common features like polymorphism, closures, or named functions. It also seemed unpowered and has no standard libraries. However, Tezos took a different view on Michelson regarding the role of smart contracts. They thought that Tezos should be a platform more as a way to implement pieces of business logic than as a generic "world computer". Michelson is targeted to these applications, not the case of arbitrary programs.

Here are more reasons why Tezos chose Michelson. Michelson is a readable bytecode, though it can be handwritten, which is based around an OCaml GADT. It is also small enough so that Tezos can easily amend, add features as they wish! (any developer as well)

Alright, this is all I prepared for this week about Michelson and will be back with a different information about Tezos for you.

Hope you enjoy the rest of this week!

See you very soon with another insight of Tezos!

Thanks,

Do Baking! @ http://tezdele.io

Sincerely,
Rooney