The Solana Handbook

Welcome. This is EasyA's legendary handbook. If you want to learn Solana like a legend, then you're in the right place.

Purpose

This handbook serves as a guide to the Solana ecosystem, geared towards those just joining for the first time. It isn't just a beginners' handbook; it's a legendary handbook. Even if you've already immersed yourself in the ecosystem, you'll find tons of helpful tidbits around here!

The EasyA App

Of course, the best place to start is always the EasyA app! Download it here for the fastest and most fun way to learn about Solana. Download it directly right here!

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Getting Started
• Core Concepts
• Development Tools
• Smart Contracts
• Solana Network
• Ecosystem Projects
• Resources
• Handy Code Snippets
• Contributing

Introduction

What is Solana:

• The Solana Programming Model - The mindset for Solana development.

Getting Started

The no-fluff starter:

• The Solana Cookbook - Start building on Solana fast
• Solana Playground - An in-browser IDE for writing, deploying, and testing Solana programs.
• Solana Developer Resources - Official resources for developers building on Solana.

Core Concepts

Explanation of fundamental concepts in the Solana ecosystem:

• Understanding Slots, Blocks, and Epochs on Solana - How Solana slots, blocks, and epochs work together.
• Consensus on Solana - How Solana PoH works.

Development Tools

Key tools and environments for Solana:

• Anchor - A framework for Solana's Sealevel runtime providing several convenient developer tools.
• @solana/web3.js - Solana JavaScript API for interacting with Solana nodes.

Smart Contracts

How to write and deploy smart contracts on Solana:

• An Introduction to Anchor - How to build on Solana with Anchor.

Solana supports native programs written in Rust. Additionally, some Solana projects support EVM compatibility, allowing for Solidity smart contracts.

Solana Network

Going into the network level:

• Solana Explorer - Solana Explorer.
• Solscan - Solana explorer with better UI/UX.

Ecosystem Projects

Cool projects built on Solana:

• Helius - Infra for Solana developers.
• Magic Eden - NFT Marketplace
• Metaplex - Mint NFTs on Solana

Resources

Extra stuff:

• Solana Blog - Solana blog.
• Solana GitHub - Solana GH.

Handy Code Snippets

Get a taste of Solana development with these code snippets:

Connecting to Solana

const { Connection, clusterApiUrl } = require('@solana/web3.js');

const connection = new Connection(clusterApiUrl('devnet'), 'confirmed');
console.log(`Connected to Solana ${connection.rpcEndpoint}`);

Creating a new account

const { Keypair } = require('@solana/web3.js');

const newAccount = Keypair.generate();
console.log('Public Key:', newAccount.publicKey.toString());

These examples showcase:

1. How to connect to the Solana network.
2. How to create a new Solana account.

Contributing

We welcome contributions to make this handbook even more legendary! Here's how you can contribute:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a new branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-addition)
3. Make your changes
4. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some amazing feature')
5. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-addition)
6. Create a new Pull Request

Please ensure your contributions align with our code of conduct and contribution guidelines.

Credit/Inspiration

This handbook was inspired by the famous awesome lists by sindresorhus and the Awesome Solana list. We need awesome lists for Web3 ecosystems, with more of a hacker's guide to how they work. This is the answer to that need.