Steem Development Pointers

If you have tried to do any development on Steem I am sure you would have hit a couple of dead ends, at-least temporary ones.. I am trying to build some utility bots which will add more value to to the https://steemit.com/@steemladder account which I am using for sharing my learnings on steemit platform from last six months. I am currently testing the bot and it should go live in next couple of days.

In the mean time here is a quickpost in case if you are planning to start the development on Steem blockchain. If you have worked on NodeJs or javascript you must check out https://github.com/steemit/steem-js Since it is in javascript you can do some quick testing in browser using javascript and once you are ready you can move it to node server. This has helped me to quickly checkout couple of options.

If you are not trying to post any comments or posts using the code they you can run your code directly against the Steem blockchain. But if you want to create posts, comments or create accounts you will need to purchase Steem Power to have the bandwidth. It can be difficult to invest money to gain steem power in the testing stage. In such scenarios you can use the Steem Testnet.

Initially I was not aware of testnet and got to know about it recently. The testnet backend is available at https://testnet.steem.vc/ and is maintained by https://steemit.com/@almost-digital. The condenser version(similar to steemit UI) or the front end for the same is also available at https://condenser.steem.vc/ The account creation is disabled on the condenser and can only be created from the backend using curl or http call. You can get the details for the same from https://testnet.steem.vc/

Ideally I feel Steem Inc should maintain at-least one testnet. It might also be a good idea to create the testnet which witnesses should maintain. Kudos to @almost-digital for maintaining this testnet. I am not sure if he is compensated enough for his efforts in maintaining. So I went to https://steemvoter.com/ to added a rule to upvote all his posts. If you starting using testnet please make sure to do the same.

I saw that testnet was not added to the documentation on https://developers.steem.io/. So I created a Pull Request to add the details of testnet in the documentation. You can watch the PR here https://github.com/steemit/devportal/pull/23

I came across https://condenser.steem.vc but since account creation was disabled I thought it is not maintained any more and discontinued prodding further. But yesterday I got to know that it is still active and there is an alternative approach for creating account. So I am making these suggestions to @almost-digital and I am hoping he will implement these.

1. On testnet UI if you try to create an account you will see the message The creation of new accounts is temporarily disabled. In addition to this message you should also add a link to Account creation section on https://testnet.steem.vc/
2. On https://testnet.steem.vc/ add a link to https://condenser.steem.vc/

Quicklinks from the post

1. Documentation : https://developers.steem.io/
2. Beginner tutorials for SteemJS : https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@sambillingham/tutorial-beginner-friendly-build-your-first-steem-bot-in-javascript-30minutes
3. Testnet : https://testnet.steem.vc/
4. Testnet UI : https://condenser.steem.vc/