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Node is a nightmare I can get a decently functional UI app working in native code with just the SDK for whatever platform it’s on, but try to use React and sud

by VRay 5y ago

Node is a nightmare I can get a decently functional UI app working in native code with just the SDK for whatever platform it’s on, but try to use React and suddenly I’ve got a web of 200 dependencies, each more shady than the last. And that’s just for “hello, world” Plus the JavaScript engine is single-threaded and insanely slow.. it’s gross. I’m guessing that one of these days app developers are collectively going to snap out of it and throw Node in the trash

joezydeco 5y ago
No, it's only going to get worse. As single-board devices get faster and cheaper by the week there's a flood of developers that have cut their teeth on Node/JS/React and they get something working on a Raspberry Pi and think "Yeah, embedded development is a piece of cake. I can do this." And maybe they're right, because doing it all by scratch and cobbling together robot parts to make a system work is just really getting to be old. I used to get annoyed at the RPi newbies but now I welcome it as job security because someone still needs to write the bootloader and drivers. And if you read StackOverflow/Reddit you'll see there's nobody teaching that anymore.
- VRay 5y ago
  Man, I kinda feel like embedded software is doomed. There are only a dozen or so companies where embedded software is a first-tier product for them that gets a lot of resources put into it. It feels like everything is moving toward using super low-quality Chinese drivers/firmware and really badly-designed microkernels (or treating linux like a microkernel) to squeeze all the functionality out of the OS and into bad managed software stacks. Then again, any company that takes firmware engineering seriously can make devices 5+ years before Moore's Law makes it feasible for others, so maybe there'll always be room for us.
  - joezydeco 5y ago
    It feels like everything is moving toward using super low-quality Chinese drivers/firmware You must be a Broadcom user. My sympathies. =) But I totally hear you. I'm not as pessimistic because I tend to follow parts that the automotive sector uses (yeah, not great right now) and they typically don't put up with random Chinesium parts and code. And yeah, it seems more and more like everyone is just throwing Linux into the mix and hoping that some OSS developer and/or Otavio Salvador swoops in and fixes things up. RISC-V may be a way out of this. Maybe. Or it will make things ten times worse.

by VRay 5y ago

joezydeco 5y ago

No, it's only going to get worse. As single-board devices get faster and cheaper by the week there's a flood of developers that have cut their teeth on Node/JS/React and they get something working on a Raspberry Pi and think "Yeah, embedded development is a piece of cake. I can do this." And maybe they're right, because doing it all by scratch and cobbling together robot parts to make a system work is just really getting to be old. I used to get annoyed at the RPi newbies but now I welcome it as job security because someone still needs to write the bootloader and drivers. And if you read StackOverflow/Reddit you'll see there's nobody teaching that anymore.

VRay 5y ago
Man, I kinda feel like embedded software is doomed. There are only a dozen or so companies where embedded software is a first-tier product for them that gets a lot of resources put into it. It feels like everything is moving toward using super low-quality Chinese drivers/firmware and really badly-designed microkernels (or treating linux like a microkernel) to squeeze all the functionality out of the OS and into bad managed software stacks. Then again, any company that takes firmware engineering seriously can make devices 5+ years before Moore's Law makes it feasible for others, so maybe there'll always be room for us.
- joezydeco 5y ago
  It feels like everything is moving toward using super low-quality Chinese drivers/firmware You must be a Broadcom user. My sympathies. =) But I totally hear you. I'm not as pessimistic because I tend to follow parts that the automotive sector uses (yeah, not great right now) and they typically don't put up with random Chinesium parts and code. And yeah, it seems more and more like everyone is just throwing Linux into the mix and hoping that some OSS developer and/or Otavio Salvador swoops in and fixes things up. RISC-V may be a way out of this. Maybe. Or it will make things ten times worse.