SPIKE: Design better API for dryrun, estimates, signing and preparation

[jevonearth]

The transfer() method abstracts many underlying steps for the developer user, which is a good thing for typical usescases. When a developer user wishes to retrieve data from some particular underlying step, they use the lower-level abstractions in taquito.

If a user wishes to get the estimate for a transaction operation on a contract method, they need to prepare the call, fetch the parameters, and then call the Tezos.estimate.transfer({op...}) API.

A proposal for a new set of methods follow;

(Controversial, maybe a better way around this?) Break the api so that contract.transfer() becomes a no-op method.

Idea is to add the following new methods;

contract.transfer({ to: address, amount: amount }).send()
contract.transfer({ to: address, amount: amount }).estimate()
contract.transfer({ to: address, amount: amount }).dryrun()
contract.transfer({ to: address, amount: amount }).sign()
contract.transfer({ to: address, amount: amount }).prepare()

And for smart contract invocations, it may look like this:

contract.methods.increment(1).send()
contract.methods.increment(1).estimate()
contract.methods.increment(1).dryrun()
contract.methods.increment(1).sign()
contract.methods.increment(1).prepare() 

send will complete all steps and inject the method
estimate will return an Estimate for the operation
dryrun will return the dryrun results, including the updated storage as evaluated by the RPC server
sign will return the signed operation but not inject the operation
prepare will prepare an operation that is ready for singing.

Acceptance criteria:

1. Prepare and agree on design
2. Create follow-up issues to prototype(if needed) and implement

[roxaneletourneau]

In addition to the above; Provide the ability to obtain operation hash before sending it to the node

[Innkst]

related to previous implementation #995

[Innkst]

We need to review the design and have a discussion again. Also, please re-confirm the follow-up tasks and let's what non-breaking changes could be implemented earlier and which ones have to wait till v15

[roxaneletourneau]

Created follow-up task issues 2019 and 2020