Author Topic: I feel.... Dirty...  (Read 4534 times)

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Offline james_s

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #25 on: April 30, 2023, 12:57:27 am »
I know that there are areas where they are a great fit, consumer IoT in particular, but overall they leave a sour taste in my mouth. We actually use them in a bunch of stuff. The stuff I don't like:
- ADC parameters, linearity and overall ADC WTF
- requires a lot of support components, external memory in particular is annoying
- documentation is not exactly awesome
- some pinout choices that I don't like

This is not to say that I won't use one where it's appropriate, but unless something really requires BLE/wifi then no way.

You'd have to be a masochist, or really need something as compact as possible to use a bare chip, I use the modules that have all the RF stuff all ready to go with a metal shielding can, it's much easier than fussing around with the RF stuff, unless that's your thing.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2023, 02:02:06 am by james_s »
 

Offline MarkSTopic starter

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #26 on: April 30, 2023, 01:40:20 am »
... Snip...

I answered this a few posts back.
 

Offline daqq

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #27 on: April 30, 2023, 07:08:13 am »
You'd have to be a masochist, or really need something as compact as possible to use a bare chip, I use the modules that have all the RF stuff all ready to go with a metal shielding can, it's much easier than fussing around with the RF stuff, unless that's your thing.
A lot of the stuff we do needs to be crazy compact. One of my boards was 8mm wide and used an STM32WB5MMG module for everything. For an ESP32 I had a 15mm wide board that was chock full of goodies, so no space for anything extra.
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Offline artag

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #28 on: April 30, 2023, 07:23:19 pm »

I guess that argument just makes NO sense to me whatsoever. Every IDE attempts to "do everything" because that's literally the point of an integrated development environment. First-party IDEs (MPLAB X, Cube MX, Keil, etc.) do all the same things, sometimes more...

Are you sure you're not actually annoyed at Visual Studio Code, which merely happens to be the most common host for PlatformIO? But you can use it in other IDEs, or use just the CLI version.

Platform i/o makes it worse by trying to do everything for every processor. This might be a strength but usually isn't. Proprietary IDEs are sometimes saved
by at least limiting the damage to one.

I don't need an IDE, I've got Unix. The entire OS is an IDE and does indeed do everything - and does it well. Not in a half-arsed way like most job-specific IDEs. That makes even less of a use-case for platform i/o : it fails to have processor-specific goodness by being all-encompassing and fails to be universal by trying to integrate less and poorer tools than you need. But that's not why I dislike it as that applies to many IDEs.

Yes, the default editor doesn't help. It's possibly not as bad as the previous default editor.

What I don't like about the 'you can change the editor' argument is that you tend to have to dig in pretty deep to change it. By which time you've learnt the wretched thing. Idk if this is the case for PIO, as I said, I was put off it by my first encounter and have avoided it like the plague ever since.


 

Offline Brumby

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #29 on: May 01, 2023, 08:57:32 am »
Don't beat yourself up too much.

I had a project offered to me (through the EEVblog no less) to provide a custom mod to a digital scale.  I was supplied with a number of units of a typical scale and found an Arduino Nano clone board fitted perfectly in a space within the case.  It had more than enough memory, adequate performance and just enough ports to do the job and once built, no-one would ever know unless they opened it up.

Sometimes getting something already built and tested is a more sensible choice.


Just don't ask me to share the source code though - so ugly  :-[ - as it was my second effort in an embedded project (the first effort is still under development, you know - one of those projects that depends on a tuit of the circular form  ;D )
 

Offline tooki

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #30 on: May 01, 2023, 09:27:08 am »

I guess that argument just makes NO sense to me whatsoever. Every IDE attempts to "do everything" because that's literally the point of an integrated development environment. First-party IDEs (MPLAB X, Cube MX, Keil, etc.) do all the same things, sometimes more...

Are you sure you're not actually annoyed at Visual Studio Code, which merely happens to be the most common host for PlatformIO? But you can use it in other IDEs, or use just the CLI version.

Platform i/o makes it worse by trying to do everything for every processor. This might be a strength but usually isn't. Proprietary IDEs are sometimes saved
by at least limiting the damage to one.

I don't need an IDE, I've got Unix. The entire OS is an IDE and does indeed do everything - and does it well. Not in a half-arsed way like most job-specific IDEs. That makes even less of a use-case for platform i/o : it fails to have processor-specific goodness by being all-encompassing and fails to be universal by trying to integrate less and poorer tools than you need. But that's not why I dislike it as that applies to many IDEs.

Yes, the default editor doesn't help. It's possibly not as bad as the previous default editor.

What I don't like about the 'you can change the editor' argument is that you tend to have to dig in pretty deep to change it. By which time you've learnt the wretched thing. Idk if this is the case for PIO, as I said, I was put off it by my first encounter and have avoided it like the plague ever since.
Forgive me for being blunt, but this reply kinda tells me that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

UNIX isn’t an IDE. It can be used as a development environment, but it’s not integrated. The entire UNIX philosophy of small, single-purpose utilities is the exact antithesis of “integrated”.

“Default editor”? PlatformIO has no default editor. The editor is whatever you choose to use, be it a command line tool, a standalone graphical text editor, or the editor in whatever IDE you choose to install PlatformIO into (if you do that).

As for “trying to do everything for every processor” — what the hell are you talking about?
 

Offline artag

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #31 on: May 01, 2023, 01:04:11 pm »

UNIX isn’t an IDE. It can be used as a development environment, but it’s not integrated. The entire UNIX philosophy of small, single-purpose utilities is the exact antithesis of “integrated”.


You're completely wrong and have entirely missed the point of Unix.

The intention of the Unix philosophy, to have those small, single-purpose utilities that are good at just one thing is that the shell and OS integrate them. As I said, the whole system is an IDE. It doesn't need half-assed partial IDEs to live inside it. Just more utilitiies that fit the integration.

What's an IDE ? An Integrated Development Environment. An enviroinment in which to develop <something> providing all the tools with which to do that and, in a well-designed system, the ability to add tools in a way that integrates into the existing system.

 
« Last Edit: May 01, 2023, 01:13:56 pm by artag »
 

Offline tooki

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #32 on: May 01, 2023, 01:14:39 pm »

UNIX isn’t an IDE. It can be used as a development environment, but it’s not integrated. The entire UNIX philosophy of small, single-purpose utilities is the exact antithesis of “integrated”.


You're completely wrong and have entirely missed the point of Unix.
The intention of the Unix philosophy, to have those small, single-purpose utilities that are good at just one thing is that the shell and OS integrate them. As I said, the whole system is an IDE. It doesn't need half-assed partial IDEs to live inside it. Just more utilitiies that fit the integration.
No, I am not wrong. And I am well aware of the UNIX philosophy.

You’ve just got a rather inventive idea of what the word “integrate” means.

UNIX shells don’t integrate anything.

You, the user, are left to integrate everything yourself. That’s a VERY different thing. It’s very powerful, but it’s all on the user to daisy-chain things together, use scripts and macros to make them work together in complex ways. The utilities aren’t inherently aware of each other or of the context, which is what the integration in IDEs does.
 
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Offline tooki

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #33 on: May 01, 2023, 01:27:33 pm »
What's an IDE ? An Integrated Development Environment. An enviroinment in which to develop <something> providing all the tools with which to do that and, in a well-designed system, the ability to add tools in a way that integrates into the existing system.
Yes. But saying UNIX is an IDE is really a stretch. It’s not integrated, it’s not specifically a development system. It’s an uncommitted blank slate. The fact that you can use it as your development environment doesn’t mean it is an IDE!

You aren’t entirely alone in your belief. But that doesn’t mean you’re right (nor conclusively mean you’re wrong!), and it certainly doesn’t make it a widely accepted notion.

Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_development_environment
https://blog.sanctum.geek.nz/series/unix-as-ide/
 

Offline artag

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #34 on: May 01, 2023, 05:36:33 pm »
It has all the tools - pipes, shared memory etc. to integrate with.
Many tasks - those that lend themselves to piping or filtering -  are already done that way, and new tools tend to be built along the same lines.
Imported tools require it to be done, it's true : but there are easy tools to do that (make and configurable filters such as awk)
 

Offline MarkSTopic starter

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #35 on: May 01, 2023, 08:29:01 pm »
*cough* The UNIX argument deserves it's own thread, don't you think? *hint hint*
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #36 on: May 01, 2023, 08:48:25 pm »
Don't beat yourself up too much.

I had a project offered to me (through the EEVblog no less) to provide a custom mod to a digital scale.  I was supplied with a number of units of a typical scale and found an Arduino Nano clone board fitted perfectly in a space within the case.  It had more than enough memory, adequate performance and just enough ports to do the job and once built, no-one would ever know unless they opened it up.

Sometimes getting something already built and tested is a more sensible choice.


Just don't ask me to share the source code though - so ugly  :-[ - as it was my second effort in an embedded project (the first effort is still under development, you know - one of those projects that depends on a tuit of the circular form  ;D )

The Arduino nano is a nice little board to integrate into projects. I really cringe when I see a fullsized arduino and a solderless breadboard stuffed inside a project box though.
 
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Offline MarkSTopic starter

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #37 on: May 02, 2023, 03:53:36 am »
I got the Arduino today and wired it up. "Borrowed" some code I found online and.... It just works! :palm: I wasted a ton of time needlessly. At least I know I have four good chips.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #38 on: May 02, 2023, 06:24:09 pm »
That's been my experience too. Initially I avoided Arduino for a long time, viewing it as bloated, but then it got to the point where hardware is SO cheap that it doesn't matter if it's bloated, it's just SO easy to get things working since there are loads of different libraries all ready to go. As a platform for hobby projects it's hard to beat.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: I feel.... Dirty...
« Reply #39 on: May 03, 2023, 10:02:47 am »
That's been my experience too. Initially I avoided Arduino for a long time, viewing it as bloated, but then it got to the point where hardware is SO cheap that it doesn't matter if it's bloated, it's just SO easy to get things working since there are loads of different libraries all ready to go. As a platform for hobby projects it's hard to beat.
Yep. And then when you need more power, you can easily transition to other hardware like ESP32, STM32, or RP2040.
 
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