Kuusho
I started down a technical path. Then stopped, then started again. So when I add timelines like "I started down a technical path 1 year ago", Keep in mind that I am neither the poster child for Discipline nor Consistency.
Yet, after completing the Cyfrin Updraft DeFi lesson, I didn't want to just keep taking lesson after lesson. I thought rather, that I'd mess around with basic projects; an airdrop contract here, a marketplace there. But, somehow I found that there were still a lot of gaps in my knowledge of code and smart contracts.
I should point out that I have no previous coding background before Solidity (It's one hell of a first programming language).
Anyways, as a result I paused for a while. Till my interest in making $100 here, $500 there from smart contract audits piqued. However, once again I'm face to face with the reality: It takes practice.
No matter what "It" is.
Interestingly, I discovered the previous, haphazard months of just looking at code and following along with tutorials honed my eye for reading and understanding code.
This level up happened under my nose and I love it. I sincerely never thought I'd look at code and understand what it SHOULD be doing vs what it's ACTUALLY doing. I felt so cool submitting the finding for my first practice audit for an inheritable smart wallet.
Fast Forward to one week later (right about now), I started a proper competitive audit. I've currently not found any vulnerabilities (more likely they are flying over my head) so there goes making $200 on my first try.
I did find some interesting things:
Code with too many "If" statements is fucking annoying to read. Looks like someone intentionally going out of their way to confuse me.
Good natspec/comment formatting is heavenly.
Maths is once again biting my ass (precision calculations and all that).
Knowing how to read code like natural language is pretty damn cool.
To be honest, I didn't have any expectations of finding H/M vulnerability bugs, but I kind of like the experience of looking at code and seeing nothing, knowing fully well that I will learn from the findings that get submitted.
"IF" you see this, this is an "IF" joke. Have a pleasant day!