The Ethereum Virtual Machine
Solidity is a programming language targeting the EVM. Ethereum blockchain helps extend its functionality by writing and executing code known as smart contracts. We will get into the details of smart contracts in subsequent chapters, but for now, it is enough to know that smart contracts are similar to object-oriented classes written in Java or C++; however, they are not the same.
The EVM executes code that is part of smart contracts. Smart contracts are written in Solidity; however, the EVM does not understand the high-level constructs of Solidity, although it does understand lower-level instructions called bytecode.
Solidity code needs a compiler to take its code and convert it into bytecode that is understandable by the EVM. Solidity comes with a compiler to do this job, known as the Solidity compiler or solc. We downloaded and installed the Solidity compiler in the last chapter using the Node.js npm command.