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I don't think you'll see much positivity with your comment. This is old school hacking in the new age of computing; I have this one thing, and I want to hook it

I don't think you'll see much positivity with your comment. This is old school hacking in the new age of computing; I have this one thing, and I want to hook it to another thing, let's figure out how to do that. I think it's amazing, and shows just how flexible and hackable the Pi can be. Of course we can throw bookoo bucks at a problem to make it disappear, or buy a specific built machine to do what we want. But there's no challenge in that, no engineering, and it's a bit of a cop out to lament that people are hacking hardware this way...

joezydeco 6y ago
Yeah, I know. I always regret commenting on RPi projects because when you do this kind of stuff day-in-day-out for a living you want to suggest alternatives that could save people a lot of busywork and lost psychic energy. Because that's what I would do for my coworkers. But I'm pissing into the wind at this point. Got my cheap ARM board, fuck you. And that's fine. Enjoy the adventure. I'm all for hacking, but reinventing the wheel isn't my thing.
- turtlebits 6y ago
  The Raspberry Pi just works and there's tons of documentation. It's not about cost. I don't want to spend my time digging into the ins and outs of a specific board, which is exactly saving me a bunch of busywork and time. If there is a new version or my existing one breaks, I'm relatively certain I can get a replacement, and if I need to upgrade, it will be painless. That said, there is nothing wrong with trying to shoehorn features into something you've got already, vs buying something unknown.
  - joezydeco 6y ago
    See, to me that sounds like RPi is the only board with a working software ecosystem, active contributors, and available source code to help get your project done. But that's not really the case.
    - barnabee 6y ago
      Depends what you mean by “ecosystem”. If you’re at the level of a hobbyist who’s considers a blog post, Hackaday project, or YouTube tutorial about setting up some server or building some type of project part of the ecosystem, then the difference between the size and accessibility of the RPi and its competitors is staggering. Sure, for any one project an alternative _may_ be the right solution, especially if you’re spending serious time on it, but when you’re constantly creating little projects and proto-projects, many of which involve little more than copying from a few blog posts, writing a bit of code for an evening or two, and deciding not to go much further, it is just SO much less risky in terms of time and probability of major hiccups to start out on an RPi. Plus, if you’re like me there’s probably one lying around somewhere so you get instant gratification and zero incremental cost to give it a try, which is often the difference between scratching the itch and not on that particular project.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      As someone who used to work on embedded hardware day-in and day-out (though it's been close to a decade since I've worked in that sector), I can assure you that really is the case, if you consider a more long-term view. Every time I look at one of the alternatives to the RPi, I just don't have confidence in the tools and community. I don't want to have to do what I used to do when I worked on embedded hardware for a living. It was fiddly and annoying (though it did have its truimphs), and mainly only tolerable because I was getting paid to do it. I want a stable, working, well-supported, upstreamed platform that I can build on without too much fuss, and also feel confident that I can keep upgrading the OS and kernel to whatever is the latest, for the next 5-10 years, even if the company behind it disappears. I play with this stuff in my spare time, and fighting with a chip vendor's nearly-always-shitty BSP is not what I consider a good use of my time. You (being someone who currently works on this stuff day-in and day-out) are in a very unique position that you can leverage to make it easy and productive for you to build on random hardware platforms, especially the ones that aren't even mainstream RPi competitors; most people posting here about this sort of thing are... not in that position.
sangnoir 6y ago
FYI: the phrase is beaucoup bucks - appropriated from French
- extra88 6y ago
  It's not unusual to spell "beaucoup" phonetically on purpose, to convey an Americanized pronunciation.

joezydeco 6y ago

Yeah, I know. I always regret commenting on RPi projects because when you do this kind of stuff day-in-day-out for a living you want to suggest alternatives that could save people a lot of busywork and lost psychic energy. Because that's what I would do for my coworkers. But I'm pissing into the wind at this point. Got my cheap ARM board, fuck you. And that's fine. Enjoy the adventure. I'm all for hacking, but reinventing the wheel isn't my thing.

turtlebits 6y ago
The Raspberry Pi just works and there's tons of documentation. It's not about cost. I don't want to spend my time digging into the ins and outs of a specific board, which is exactly saving me a bunch of busywork and time. If there is a new version or my existing one breaks, I'm relatively certain I can get a replacement, and if I need to upgrade, it will be painless. That said, there is nothing wrong with trying to shoehorn features into something you've got already, vs buying something unknown.
- joezydeco 6y ago
  See, to me that sounds like RPi is the only board with a working software ecosystem, active contributors, and available source code to help get your project done. But that's not really the case.
  - barnabee 6y ago
    Depends what you mean by “ecosystem”. If you’re at the level of a hobbyist who’s considers a blog post, Hackaday project, or YouTube tutorial about setting up some server or building some type of project part of the ecosystem, then the difference between the size and accessibility of the RPi and its competitors is staggering. Sure, for any one project an alternative _may_ be the right solution, especially if you’re spending serious time on it, but when you’re constantly creating little projects and proto-projects, many of which involve little more than copying from a few blog posts, writing a bit of code for an evening or two, and deciding not to go much further, it is just SO much less risky in terms of time and probability of major hiccups to start out on an RPi. Plus, if you’re like me there’s probably one lying around somewhere so you get instant gratification and zero incremental cost to give it a try, which is often the difference between scratching the itch and not on that particular project.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    As someone who used to work on embedded hardware day-in and day-out (though it's been close to a decade since I've worked in that sector), I can assure you that really is the case, if you consider a more long-term view. Every time I look at one of the alternatives to the RPi, I just don't have confidence in the tools and community. I don't want to have to do what I used to do when I worked on embedded hardware for a living. It was fiddly and annoying (though it did have its truimphs), and mainly only tolerable because I was getting paid to do it. I want a stable, working, well-supported, upstreamed platform that I can build on without too much fuss, and also feel confident that I can keep upgrading the OS and kernel to whatever is the latest, for the next 5-10 years, even if the company behind it disappears. I play with this stuff in my spare time, and fighting with a chip vendor's nearly-always-shitty BSP is not what I consider a good use of my time. You (being someone who currently works on this stuff day-in and day-out) are in a very unique position that you can leverage to make it easy and productive for you to build on random hardware platforms, especially the ones that aren't even mainstream RPi competitors; most people posting here about this sort of thing are... not in that position.

sangnoir 6y ago

FYI: the phrase is beaucoup bucks - appropriated from French

extra88 6y ago
It's not unusual to spell "beaucoup" phonetically on purpose, to convey an Americanized pronunciation.