@Vex_0x: Huff, Low Level Languages, & the EVM

Devs Do Something

Today’s guest is Vex, a software engineer, smart contract developer, and major contributor to Huff - a low level assembly language for the Ethereum Virtual machine.

Vex knows a ton about the EVM at the low level, and we go deep into why Huff is a great language to learn for building incredibly gas efficient contracts. Huff is also being used more and more as an educational tool, as it allows you to build programs that are, as Josh says, equivalent to ‘bare metal ethereum.’

If you’re interested in low level smart contract languages, and developing a deeper understanding of how the EVM works, you’ll love this episode.

Huff Links
https://huff.sh/
https://github.com/pentagonxyz/huffmate
https://github.com/huff-language
Writing a SNARK verifier in Huff:
https://github.com/whitenois3/huff-snark-verifier

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
5:00 getting involved with huff & going low level

8:05 Huff overview

10:12 Writing a SNARK verifier in Huff

13:07 Good Huff use cases

16:20 Is the need to use low level assembly a failure of the higher level language?

19:05 Huff vs Yul - in Huff, you have to manage the stack yourself

22:01 Huff as an educational tool for understanding the low level

26:28 Optimizations and interesting design patterns

30:33 New EIPs for the EVM execution environment

34:16 Long term vision for Huff, and new feature ideas

41:10 Huff’s place in MEV

43:35 CTFs

48:52 Outside of Huff, what is Vex interested in?

52:30 Vex’s long term outlook on the industry