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I think the appeal is that web developers won't need to learn another language in order to do embedded development. That's another barrier to entry to embedded

by nrubin 13y ago

I think the appeal is that web developers won't need to learn another language in order to do embedded development. That's another barrier to entry to embedded development lowered.

benologist 13y ago
I'm not sure that's accurate ... web developers went out of their way to make CSS and JavaScript not be written in CSS and JavaScript.
bigiain 13y ago
From where I sit - it seems a lot of the UI for "internet of things" hardware is going to be your phone, so your end user facing code is likely to be html5/javascript web apps served from the webserver on the embedded hardware. There's tehn a lot of good reasons to run javascript code on the device as well. (Which isn't the approach we're taking, we've got html5/js for the UI and Python running most of the code on our hardware (for details and shameless self promotion, see http://dev.moorescloud.com/ http://dev.moorescloud.com/ ).
- pjmlp 13y ago
  I rather have a native application using TCP/IP to talk to the device.
gaze 13y ago
I don't want hardware designed by people who can't manage to learn a language.
pekk 13y ago
If you want to do new things, why not learn appropriate ways of doing those things? Is it really so hard to use more than one language when that makes technical sense?
- fantnn 13y ago
  yeah we should just develop everything in assembly
- nrubin 13y ago
  For some people it may be easy. For others they may have awesome ideas but decide not to execute on those ideas because learning Arduino C++ or figuring out how to install Node on a RaspberryPi seems like a large barrier to entry for them. Maybe some of those people are those that make those awesome websites, and maybe with an embedded controller that feels more like the environment they're used to, they're more likely to bring their awesome ideas to fruition. Disclaimer: I went to school with the Tessel folks.
- bigiain 13y ago
  As a member of a small startup (4 person technical team, all of us holding down day-jobs as well), the _prime_ decision trigger for technology is "what 'way of doing things' is the person allocated to a particular task going to be most productive in right now?". That's driven us in some directions that're non-obvious to outsiders - our stack is basically ARCH Linux, CherryPi, Python, Arduino, HTML5/JS - I can easily see people thinking "WTF? Why?", but there's some very good reasons behind those decisions - reasons which have probably allowed us to get to market 6 months earlier than if we'd chosen the stack based purely on technical merits rather than considering the skills and competencies of the existing team. If we'd had corporate funding behind us, it'd almost certainly be different. But as a small startup, I'm 100% sure our slightly odd choices are the right ones for us. (And I could easily see why a different startup might decide node.js/javascript on the hardware was the correct choice for _their_ technical/development team)
  - BWStearns 13y ago
    This is perfect logic for a small startup, it is less so for a hardware team that is going to be pay dearly for changing decisions they make today (moreso than a software team). Hitting a big ecosystem is definitely a viable reason to do something when targeting developers, but what about the longer term costs associated with it? Their goal is to be the bridge that lets web devs start bringing hardware online. I think it's fair to say that other less painful languages with large developer bases were available, and some have the holy trinity of sucking less, being able to run faster, and having a sufficiently large ecosystem around them.
smosher 13y ago
Well that's the most depressing thing I've heard all year.
dxhdr 13y ago
Why are they targeting web developers in the first place? I'm not sure I understood that part of the pitch.

by nrubin 13y ago

I think the appeal is that web developers won't need to learn another language in order to do embedded development. That's another barrier to entry to embedded development lowered.

benologist 13y ago

I'm not sure that's accurate ... web developers went out of their way to make CSS and JavaScript not be written in CSS and JavaScript.

bigiain 13y ago

From where I sit - it seems a lot of the UI for "internet of things" hardware is going to be your phone, so your end user facing code is likely to be html5/javascript web apps served from the webserver on the embedded hardware. There's tehn a lot of good reasons to run javascript code on the device as well. (Which isn't the approach we're taking, we've got html5/js for the UI and Python running most of the code on our hardware (for details and shameless self promotion, see http://dev.moorescloud.com/ http://dev.moorescloud.com/ ).

pjmlp 13y ago
I rather have a native application using TCP/IP to talk to the device.

gaze 13y ago

I don't want hardware designed by people who can't manage to learn a language.

pekk 13y ago

If you want to do new things, why not learn appropriate ways of doing those things? Is it really so hard to use more than one language when that makes technical sense?

fantnn 13y ago
yeah we should just develop everything in assembly
nrubin 13y ago
For some people it may be easy. For others they may have awesome ideas but decide not to execute on those ideas because learning Arduino C++ or figuring out how to install Node on a RaspberryPi seems like a large barrier to entry for them. Maybe some of those people are those that make those awesome websites, and maybe with an embedded controller that feels more like the environment they're used to, they're more likely to bring their awesome ideas to fruition. Disclaimer: I went to school with the Tessel folks.
bigiain 13y ago
As a member of a small startup (4 person technical team, all of us holding down day-jobs as well), the _prime_ decision trigger for technology is "what 'way of doing things' is the person allocated to a particular task going to be most productive in right now?". That's driven us in some directions that're non-obvious to outsiders - our stack is basically ARCH Linux, CherryPi, Python, Arduino, HTML5/JS - I can easily see people thinking "WTF? Why?", but there's some very good reasons behind those decisions - reasons which have probably allowed us to get to market 6 months earlier than if we'd chosen the stack based purely on technical merits rather than considering the skills and competencies of the existing team. If we'd had corporate funding behind us, it'd almost certainly be different. But as a small startup, I'm 100% sure our slightly odd choices are the right ones for us. (And I could easily see why a different startup might decide node.js/javascript on the hardware was the correct choice for _their_ technical/development team)
- BWStearns 13y ago
  This is perfect logic for a small startup, it is less so for a hardware team that is going to be pay dearly for changing decisions they make today (moreso than a software team). Hitting a big ecosystem is definitely a viable reason to do something when targeting developers, but what about the longer term costs associated with it? Their goal is to be the bridge that lets web devs start bringing hardware online. I think it's fair to say that other less painful languages with large developer bases were available, and some have the holy trinity of sucking less, being able to run faster, and having a sufficiently large ecosystem around them.

smosher 13y ago

Well that's the most depressing thing I've heard all year.

dxhdr 13y ago

Why are they targeting web developers in the first place? I'm not sure I understood that part of the pitch.