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I also really like MicroPython! Having said that, I have been working on an alternative to it for a number of years now -- primarily to provide a more robust an

I also really like MicroPython! Having said that, I have been working on an alternative to it for a number of years now -- primarily to provide a more robust and performant high-level alternative to C and Rust on the ESP32-family of chips: https://github.com/toitlang/toit https://github.com/toitlang/toit I'd love to pick your brain and fully understand your experience with MicroPython. I've been doing programming languages for a number of years now, and I find that it is incredibly useful to understand what developers appreciate (and dislike) about the available stacks.

stavros 4y ago
I've looked at Toit (and love MicroPython), but the reason why I don't use either for my hobby projects is that the ecosystem is so large with C++, that it doesn't make sense to use anything else. Do I write MicroPython, a language I know well, but that has a few libraries, or do I stumble my way around C++ in an ecosystem that has basically everything? The choice has been very easy so far.
- kasperl 4y ago
  That's a fair and valid point. I firmly believe that live reloading of individual apps on your ESP32 during development is a big win for productivity, but clearly so is an established and mature ecosystem.
  - stavros 4y ago
    Is there any way to easily interoperate with C++ libraries? That would basically solve the problem.
    - johannes1234321 4y ago
      One can relatively easily extend MicroPthon, but then you of course have to rebuild and reflash. Hot loading of native libraries I haven't seen.
    - kasperl 4y ago
      There are ways and we've seen successful integration of C++ libraries and functionality - but it is not what I would call easy yet. Toit is evolving rapidly and we find that being fully open source helps our users tweak things where necessary. It's been a fun ride so far and we've got some pretty awesome and sophisticated use cases that involve custom C++ code.
      - stavros 4y ago
        I'll definitely give it a go, it looks very interesting!

stavros 4y ago

I've looked at Toit (and love MicroPython), but the reason why I don't use either for my hobby projects is that the ecosystem is so large with C++, that it doesn't make sense to use anything else. Do I write MicroPython, a language I know well, but that has a few libraries, or do I stumble my way around C++ in an ecosystem that has basically everything? The choice has been very easy so far.

kasperl 4y ago
That's a fair and valid point. I firmly believe that live reloading of individual apps on your ESP32 during development is a big win for productivity, but clearly so is an established and mature ecosystem.
- stavros 4y ago
  Is there any way to easily interoperate with C++ libraries? That would basically solve the problem.
  - johannes1234321 4y ago
    One can relatively easily extend MicroPthon, but then you of course have to rebuild and reflash. Hot loading of native libraries I haven't seen.
  - kasperl 4y ago
    There are ways and we've seen successful integration of C++ libraries and functionality - but it is not what I would call easy yet. Toit is evolving rapidly and we find that being fully open source helps our users tweak things where necessary. It's been a fun ride so far and we've got some pretty awesome and sophisticated use cases that involve custom C++ code.
    - stavros 4y ago
      I'll definitely give it a go, it looks very interesting!