Update to a more modern web3 library

[samajammin]

Summary

The app currently uses v0.20.7 of web3.js. We should upgrade this to use a more modern web3 library (0.20 has been superseded by 1.2 for a long time, and it has a nicer interface).

Motivation

Since Ethereum Studio's core purpose is to onboard Ethereum developers, we should be using the latest & best (stable) tools available. We shouldn't teach approaches & patterns that will change when they go to set up a local dev environment.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Should we also consider using ethers.js? It's adoption has grown significantly & is now recommended as the convenience library of choice by some wallet projects (like MetaMask).

Additional context

• Recommendation from a recent feedback survey of Ethereum developers.
• Before committing to this we should try to gain an understanding of how large of an undertaking this would be

[ChrisChinchilla]

@samajammin I am about to start work on the docs for ethers, might be a good time to refactor our tutorials to use it…

[samajammin]

@ChrisChinchilla as in you'll be working to update the ethers docs?

[ChrisChinchilla]

@samajammin yup

[ChrisChinchilla]

And then we can rework the templates to use it, but the library is about to have a major new release, so might as well wait for that first I guess. I can use the templates as guidance and examples while I rewrite the docs too, that's a nice idea.

[samajammin]

@javier-tarazaga I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. From a quick glance through the codebase, it looks like there's many areas that web3.js interacts with.

Do you have any sense of how big of an undertaking these would be:
A) Upgrading the project to use web3 v1.2?
B) Upgrading the project to use ethers?

The difficulty of the 2 options may help guide the decision here.

[javier-tarazaga]

Yeap makes total sense to update this version. The one we are currently using internally it is SUPER old and should be updated to the latest working version.

[lovrobiljeskovic]

@samajammin I am currently working on this and I tried bumping the web3.js to latest on a remote branch, so far I can tell that at least the templates will have to be updated, but that shouldnt be too big of a deal I think.