Note: This is a little outdated — EthSharp was ultimately discontinued. However, the work has been furthered on Stratis. Learn more here.

The Ethereum development ecosystem is young. As a result, the barriers-to-entry to get started building decentralized applications on the Ethereum blockchain are high. Budding Ethereum developers are limited to using unfamiliar languages and development environments, and command-line tools for just about everything.

For enthusiasts, this isn’t a problem, but it’s a hindrance to mainstream adoption, especially considering the ridiculous pace at which developers already have to learn new frameworks to keep up. Companies that want to venture into Ethereum development have to either hire new talent or retrain their existing teams. Individuals looking to take that step and start building out their grand idea have to jump the mental hurdle of committing time to learn and understand new syntax before they can work on a prototype.

This is why I’ve created EthSharp, an organisation that plans to make Ethereum and blockchain development as easy as web development. And it starts with a new (old?) language for smart contract development.