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MicroPython v1.25.0
- est 1y agoofftopic I am curious anyone tried using micropython to replace CPython o x86 servers?
- analog31 1y agoI've not used MicroPython, but its fork, CircuitPython. My impression is that it's essentially a Python that doesn't interact with an operating system. Thus if there's a reason for a server to have an OS and interact with it, the regular Python would be preferable. I also don't know how much of the more advanced optimizations of Python are built into MicroPython. There's always a dilemma between making it performant, and making it micro.
- matt_trentini 1y agoYes, although MicroPython is focused on running on microcontrollers it can be useful if you want to reduce memory consumption, flash space and even startup time on servers. The challenge is that MicroPython has many fewer standard libraries: https://github.com/micropython/micropython/wiki/Standard-Library-Coverage https://github.com/micropython/micropython/wiki/Standard-Lib... And so many Python libraries targeting CPython won't work out-of-the box and you'll need to modify them or use alternatives that do work on the MicroPython subset.
- jononor 1y agoOnly really feasible if your program does not have any CPython C module dependencies. As there is no API compatibility with those.
- thaliaarchi 1y agoI find it interesting that MicroPython's `re` module[0] is implemented with a backtracking regular expression engine from re1.5[1], instead of one of the linear-time engines from the same library. (Russ Cox covers the various engines in the excellent blog series[2] which re1 is a companion to.) I figure the choice was made due to binary size or memory constraints, though they're all quite small. [0]: https://github.com/micropython/micropython/tree/master/lib/re1.5 https://github.com/micropython/micropython/tree/master/lib/r... [1]: https://github.com/pfalcon/re1.5/tree/v0.8.2 https://github.com/pfalcon/re1.5/tree/v0.8.2 [2]: https://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp2.html https://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp2.html
- matt_trentini 1y agoYes, it was chosen for low size and memory constraints. But it is limited in features (like counted repetitions): https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/library/re.html https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/library/re.html so alternatives to provide additional features have been discussed... Either extending the existing module or swapping to a more feature-rich library. Possibly even doing so for larger micros that can afford the additional flash/memory, though that makes support more challenging.
- thaliaarchi 1y agoI was talking about the performance, not the feature set. Russ Cox's re1 and the re1.5 fork have several engines for different implementation strategies. re1 was written for primarily pedagogical reasons, so its minimality comes from that. The engine chosen by MicroPython is vulnerable to catastrophic backtracking and switching to the Pike VM implementation would fix that. Instead of backtracking in the text when the pattern doesn't match, the Pike VM iterates each char in the text only once, visiting the states valid for that position in lock step. Consequently, it allocates a list of “thread”s, proportional in length to the number of states in the pattern (though usually patterns have relatively few states). Many security issues have resulted from regexp denials of service, so this slight memory tradeoff might be worthwhile. Since recursiveloop.c has been changed by MicroPython, those changes would need to be ported to pike.c. The fixes are small and none of the extra features exploit the backtracking, so this should be easy.
- pjmlp 1y agoLots of cool improvements.
- antirez 1y agoBackground for folks that are not into MicroPython. This release is so important because MicroPython is almost completely able to replace lower level languages like C for many embedded use cases on the RP20[45]0 and ESP32 and other MCUs at this point, being very solid, fast enough (and thanks to Viper and inline assembly abilities even super fast for critical code paths), portable across MPUs (super important: you can change MCU without rewriting everything), has very good support for SPI and other protocols, and so forth. But... the problem is, before this release MicroPython suffered not the CPU shortage, but RAM shortage: the bytecode needed to stay in memory, and once the program becomes big enough, memory is the bottleneck that limits the project size. To avoid that, you could build your own MicroPython binary with your frozen bytecode inside, in the device flash part, but... if I need to rebuild MicroPython part of the advantage of using it is gone (super fast development cycle is one of those). Well, now, with ROMFS, this is no longer true, MP itself is able to store bytecode in the device flash and execute from there. This makes MP a lot more practical for large embedded projects.
- aero-glide2 1y agoIs there still any point in learning Rust then
- actionfromafar 1y agoYou are downvoted, but for some things, no there isn't. MicroPython can be very useful for some use cases and it's safer than C.
- pjmlp 1y agoDepends on the point of view regarding using languages with automatic resource management. I learn all languages that I find interesting, even if I don't use them, because I am a systems programming nerd, in languages, graphics and operating systems. So it is always interesting to have an understanding of what Rust is all about, even if I will never work professionaly with it.
- whytevuhuni 1y agoImagine trying to make some sort of MP3 player using an MCU. You’d be able to use MicroPython for the controls, but for decoding you won’t be able to get away with it, and you’ll need something like C/C++/Rust.
- mrheosuper 1y agoI want to integrate MP to my project. The core FW is still in c/cpp, but the UI/UX and some logic could be done in Python. But i feel like MP want to be the center of FW.
- jononor 1y agoMicroPython can be used either as the top-level entry point, with your C/C++ code being modules (callable from Python). Or you can embed the interpreter into a C/C++ program - see the "embed" port for an example.
- gitroom 1y ago[dead]
- BoingBoomTschak 1y agoSeems pretty cool. As someone who never did anything on such low specced hardware (so not knowing if it's truly comparable), I also found http://www.ulisp.com/ http://www.ulisp.com/ quite interesting to look at.
- stdbrouw 1y agoI'm a bit confused about the Pyboard. Do people buy Pyboards instead of ESP32 in order to support the project, or because they are more featureful, or both? Why does the Pyboard have a CPU in addition to the microcontroller, does the microcontroller only deal with IO?
- Neywiny 1y agoQuick search shows the v1.1 at least it's just a microcontroller and a uSD slot. So I'd imagine it's just about support. With all the ESP32 boards out there, sky's the limit on word behavior you could get from flaky hardware.
- stdbrouw 1y agoAh yes, I read "STM" and immediately figured it was one of those old school very low MHz microcontrollers but apparently those are available with ARM cores too... possibly had 'em confused with AVR/ATmega.
- Neywiny 1y agoAs a habitual STM user professionally,... Yes. Not the highest performance but high enough and good peripherals. The blue pill is a STM.