Solidity is an object-oriented, high-level language for implementing smart contracts. Smart contracts are programs which govern the behaviour of accounts within the Ethereum state.
Solidity was influenced by C++, Python and JavaScript and is designed to target the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Solidity is statically typed, supports inheritance, libraries and complex user-defined types among other features.
With Solidity you can create contracts for uses such as voting, crowdfunding, blind auctions, and multi-signature wallets.
When deploying contracts, you should use the latest released version of Solidity. This is because breaking changes as well as new features and bug fixes are introduced regularly. We currently use a 0.x version number to indicate this fast pace of change.