Modex has unveiled in London, at the Distributed Innovation Summit, its cutting-edge Unified Developer Environment. Composed of a series of tools specially designed to respond to developer’s needs, the Modex UDE comes with its own Solidity dedicated IDE, fused with a test net environment, bytecode analysis, block explorer, and a suite of oracles which will allow developers to push the boundaries of blockchain even farther, by allowing smart contracts to access information from external web sources.
Technology is in a constant state of motion, evolving continuously as time passes. In the late 90’s, the Internet shattered every aspect of society, launching a disruptive wave of innovation which had deep ramifications across every business and industrial sphere. In fact, the explosive rate in which it took hold on basically every aspect of our lives, led to a period of excessive speculation known as the dot-com bubble. Other similar moments are the emergence of the smartphone, launched by Apple in 2007, and Apple Store, a year later in 2008. Nowadays it’s almost impossible to envision life without smartphones, and mobile apps which have gained significant traction, involving into a booming industry. Currently, a new player has taken center stage, igniting a new wave of technological innovation. I’m talking of course about blockchain technology.
The first ripples made by blockchain were felt in the financial sphere, with the emergence of cryptocurrencies. Due to its inherent characteristic, it has begun to rapidly spread across every sphere of activity, streamlining outdated models, similar to what happened with the internet in the 90’s. As a software developer, it’s impossible to resist the calling of a new and promising technology such as blockchain, you can say that it’s in our DNA to explore, research and understand everything there is to know about it. But envision the following scenario: you are a developer during the 90’s, with a limited knowledge pool and you wish to create a complex web app, but you only have a basic development toolkit at your disposal. This illustrates exactly the position of developers when it comes to the blockchain. Because it is a relatively new technology, there are few experts who actually know what they are doing, and the tools necessary to start working on it are quite restrictive and limited in their scope. Not to mention that there is a very steep learning curve involved.
The Inspiration for the Modex UDE
“The contrast between the 90’s and our current time frame is that we have a much deeper understanding about app development and the tools required to complete this process. All this experience gained through trial and error during the 90’s and early 2000’s, enables us to tackle complex technologies such as blockchain more efficiently, allowing developers to build a cohesive ecosystem which encompasses all the necessary tools to fast-track blockchain development adoption. Early web and app development provides a guideline for how new technologies should be approached in order to allow more developers to become proficient in it. As such, Modex aims to take all this accumulated knowledge in order to lay the foundation for a blockchain development ecosystem”, stated Florin Otto, Head of Product at Modex.
There is a fundamental logic behind any digital marketplace. You can’t have one without a product of course, and in this case, the product is represented by an app. At the same time, apps require developers in order to create them, but tools are required to write code for the apps. Think of this interdependent sequence, as an ecosystem, where everything must be linked together in order to function properly. This series of necessities is the main source of inspiration behind Modex’s Unified Developer Environment.
Modex’s Bytecode Analysis
To function properly, every marketplace needs a series of internal procedures that map out the development cycle, but of equal importance is the establishment of a thorough audit framework. A relevant example is the case of Apple and Google app stores because they offer two different functioning models. In the case of Apple, an app is usually thoroughly tested for a period of two weeks in order to ensure its integrity, only after that process is completed, the app is pushed into the marketplace. Google, on the other hand, managed to fully automate the audit process, by scanning the app’s bytecode to determine if there are any issues with the code.
Modex intends to employ a middle of the road approach; as such they intend to combine Apple’s thoroughness with their own version of bytecode analysis. Modex’s technical team believes that bytecode analysis is an instrumental tool which will empower developers. When writing code, there is always a chance to leave, a backdoor, a vulnerability which can be exploited in the smart contract. If this is the case, it can put a business or a company in a critical position. This is why Modex decided to create its own syntax. After extensive research on bytecode, Modex has created this syntax which is similar to a language, capable to understand bytecode compiled by Solidity.
“By analyzing this code, we provide an additional layer of support to developers, by highlighting mistakes in the code, giving them a full overview, while also helping them keep up with the latest trends in security and code styling. The Modex syntax is intertwined with bytecode analysis in order to allow us to scan the code for vulnerabilities, ranging from overflows to reentrancy, determining if the address of an owner of a smart contract can be overwritten or not, how funds are sent in a transaction, and if the transaction fails, how are funds returned”, stated Vali Malinoiu, Modex’s Chief of Blockchain Innovation.
Modex aims to become a high standard marketplace, where developers and businesses can effortlessly interact with each other. Modex has currently launched their token sale, to help fund the development of their products and help grow their community of blockchain developers.
About the Author: The author of this article is Mihaela Becheru, Head of Public Relations at Modex.
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