Too many programming languages?

[SiliconWizard]

And most importantly, is it worth giving shiny new toys to web developer so they can ignorantly cock up finding information on the web in more ways? The latter is a resounding "no".

Oh, but that gives them the opportunity to flood Youtube with myriads of videos talking about the new web "technologies" and trying to teach (preach?) the whole world about those! 

[tggzzz]

And most importantly, is it worth giving shiny new toys to web developer so they can ignorantly cock up finding information on the web in more ways? The latter is a resounding "no".

Oh, but that gives them the opportunity to flood Youtube with myriads of videos talking about the new web "technologies" and trying to teach (preach?) the whole world about those! 

Most such videos (and many blog posts) are little more than "look at me, I managed to install X and execute the equivalent of a 'Hello World' program".

The better ones go a bit deeper and try to replicate something that isn't a trivial canned example.

Very few do a useful "compare and contrast" exercise - probably because they haven't a clue about what already exists and is used in production systems.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Yes the web hipsters are annoying, but you aren't being a bit narrow minded? Because if I can grab any phone/tablet/desktop running any OS/iOS/Android/Linux/Windozes/MacOS/whatever and connect to my scope in a sec with the browser without having to find, buy or download and install anything, I call that a win. And it works (if done properly) just as well as a native app, that in many cases is made with the same HTML+JS in a webview packaged as a normal app.

[SiliconWizard]

Because if I can grab any phone/tablet/desktop running any OS/iOS/Android/Linux/Windozes/MacOS/whatever and connect to my scope in a sec with the browser without having to find, buy or download and install anything, I call that a win. And it works (if done properly) just as well as the proprietary/dedicated app, that in many cases is made with the same HTML+JS in a webview packaged as a normal app.

You're right that usefulness should be one of the main criterions here.

Now with your example with a scope, depends on what you're going to do? If it's just for capturing screenshots/retrieving sampled data, many modern scopes these days support appearing as a removable drive when plugged with USB - so retrieving files is trivial, and no specific software needs to be installed (the recent scopes that don't support this just plain suck, come on vendors!). You won't gain any time (it will just add some) using a tablet or phone as an intermediary, as the files are still ultimately likely to be used on a computer for further use, and not on a mobile device.

If it's to act as some kind of remote control (so not just retrieving files, but controlling the scope), I personally don't see the point. Any scopes, even the lousy ones, are a lot more usable directly using their knobs and buttons than using a remote, touch-screen interface. As a paradox, those mobile UIs for scopes (and otherwise lab equipment) often mimic actual, physical knobs and buttons (but of course a lot clunkier to use). What's the benefit?

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

With the MicSig app you use it exactly in the same way: the touch interface in the tablet is identical. It isn't a web app, but could (should!) have been I often use it via WiFi just to take a screenshot and send it via whatsapp/telegram in a sec. No pendrives, no cables, no nothing needed.

[tggzzz]

Yes the web hipsters are annoying, but you aren't being a bit narrow minded? Because if I can grab any phone/tablet/desktop running any OS/iOS/Android/Linux/Windozes/MacOS/whatever and connect to my scope in a sec with the browser without having to find, buy or download and install anything, I call that a win. And it works (if done properly) just as well as the proprietary/dedicated app, that in many cases is made with the same HTML+JS in a webview packaged as a normal app.

I mostly use scopes with their own screen, in which case an extra screen is of no benefit.

For the one occasional case of a scope without a screen, at the back of my bench there is a large computer screen with the computer on a shelf. It does not move, so installing software is not a problem. Consequently having another display device on the bench is not an advantage - and it would take up precious space. Hence there can be no benefit in that use case.

The remaining use cases where I might use a separate screen are very niche: scope perched on top of a ladder, or wireless to ensure physical isolation from me.

I will never just walk up to a scope and connect to it with a mobile device!

So I'm struggling to see a USP with significant benefits; the same ends can be achieved by other simpler means.

Apart from that, it may be Kewl Tek with other uses, but I've found a good career progression is based on adopting technologies which enable you to achieve things you can't by other means.

BTW, I've been an early adopter of many technologies over the decades,e.g. micros in 76, C in 81, OOP in 86, Java in 96, the web in 93 when everything was announced on cern.ch, google.edu, and more. I've even developed a half of an award winning distributed web business

Hence I can reasonably claim that I'm not afraid of new tech

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Sorry... what is USP? And Kewl Tek?

[tggzzz]

Sorry... what is USP? And Kewl Tek?

Unique selling point, and cool technology

[DimitriP]

I had a co-worker/friend in college (~1980) whose resume trumpeted that it had used 9 different programs (or something like that) to format/print it.

I wasn't sure that that was a good thing to put in a resume :-)

(OTOH, that was back when most resumes were just typed on an actual typewriter, and programmers were rarer...)

You say this as if it stopped happening.
It still happens today!

How about when you receive an email, with a link to a webpage that once you get there you have to open a PDF to read the announcement/newsletter etc ?
Brilliant!

[FrankBuss]

For MCU you are basically limited to C (8 bit) and C/C++ (ARM) for any serious use. And then there is Verilog/ VHDL if you want to use FPGA.

These days you can use Python for FPGAs with Migen. Simple example I just did:

https://twitter.com/frank_buss/status/1193395941069479936

Use MicroPython/CircuitPython for the microcontroller, and Python scripts for a GUI on a PC if you need it, then it is Python all the way down, if you want

[obiwanjacobi]

Just ran into these:

https://ziglang.org/

https://nim-lang.org/

Read a bit about zig -and there are YT videos- and it sounds really good. Also targets embedded.
Nim I just discovered and looks a bit 'more of the same'... <disclaimer>

[2c]

[Cerebus]

Q1: what's the USP benefit of a webapp over an app?

For web-apps in general:

• Scalabilty. Sometimes. If well architected.
• Targetting a single platform (the browser) instead of multiple platforms (Windows, Linux etc, etc.). In theory.
• Naturally oriented to a scalable 'cloud' platform, lending itself to lucrative on-going subscription revenue.
• Provides useful employment to "full stack" programmers, thus keeping them off the streets and out of the hair of proper programmers.
• That is all.

Q2: if running in a smartphone, what's the battery life?

Until you get to the office/next coffee shop/the inbuilt charger in your car/the train/the plane, just.

Q3: if running in a smartphone, are the GUI controls usable on such a small screen?

Yes, it'll be "responsive". So you only have to flick down the page 5 times to find the (undocumented) control you're looking for and flick back up. If you don't use that control often enough it'll be removed to the hamburger menu for your convenience and to keep your screen nice and uncluttered.

Q4: how do you support the display so that it can be used hands free?

Siri, Alexa or Cortana are your friends. You just teach them a new skill.

And most importantly, is it worth giving shiny new toys to web developer so they can ignorantly cock up finding information on the web in more ways?

See my earlier point on keeping the streets and offices Hipster free.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Q2: if running in a smartphone, what's the battery life?

Until you get to the office/next coffee shop/the inbuilt charger in your car/the train/the plane, just.

LOL. But the web apps I make don't suck any more battery than native apps. Those of the hispsters with ear rings and blue/green/pink hair that don't know any better than to script JQuery on the other hand... well, maybe, yeah.

[tggzzz]

Q1: what's the USP benefit of a webapp over an app?

For web-apps in general:

• Scalabilty. Sometimes. If well architected.
• Targetting a single platform (the browser) instead of multiple platforms (Windows, Linux etc, etc.). In theory.
• Naturally oriented to a scalable 'cloud' platform, lending itself to lucrative on-going subscription revenue.
• Provides useful employment to "full stack" programmers, thus keeping them off the streets and out of the hair of proper programmers.
• That is all.

Q2: if running in a smartphone, what's the battery life?

Until you get to the office/next coffee shop/the inbuilt charger in your car/the train/the plane, just.

Q3: if running in a smartphone, are the GUI controls usable on such a small screen?

Yes, it'll be "responsive". So you only have to flick down the page 5 times to find the (undocumented) control you're looking for and flick back up. If you don't use that control often enough it'll be removed to the hamburger menu for your convenience and to keep your screen nice and uncluttered.

Q4: how do you support the display so that it can be used hands free?

Siri, Alexa or Cortana are your friends. You just teach them a new skill.

And most importantly, is it worth giving shiny new toys to web developer so they can ignorantly cock up finding information on the web in more ways?

See my earlier point on keeping the streets and offices Hipster free.

I try not to be a cynic, but I find it difficult to disagree with any of that.

I'm still interested if GeorgeOfTheJungle (or anyone else) can indicate a benefit of a webapp over an plain app in this case.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

I'm still interested if GeorgeOfTheJungle (or anyone else) can indicate a benefit of a webapp over an plain app in this case.

1) No need to buy
2) No need to install
3) Runs on any platform/OS
4) As fast as a native app
5) As good as a native app

What's not to like about it?

[Berni]

I will admit i am also a bit allergic to web apps.

It is indeed very impressive what is now possible in HTML5. Entire apps including hardware 3D are no problem at all. So what is not to like about it. Well all of this is the reason why browsers have become such famous resource hogs. More and more of these features are used just to make websites look a little bit prettier or to show ads in some novel new way. As a result having a older computer with any less than 4GB of RAM will cause the browser to crash once a handful of such wasteful websites are open. Things with limited computational power like slightly older phones take 0.1 second to download the page and then spend 5 seconds rendering it. Sometimes these features are used to implement "inovative" new ways of navigating websites such as infinite scrolling that loads things as you scroll down forever, offten done in a bad way where the scripts break ocasonaly, or following a link to something and going back resets you to the begining of the page. All of this making the website incredibly frustrating to use compared to a typical website from 2010. Not saying using this new browser technologies is bad, you can do some cool stuff, but don't shove them into everything for no reason.

The other thing is that webapps live in a browser window. I personally am very messy in the use of my browser. I keep opening new tabs, middle clicking lots of links and them moving trough tabs in order to have pages ready for me to see them rather than wait, keeping a lot of tabs open in case i need it again in the near future, quickly firing off google searches and opening the first 5 results in tabs. All of this is to optimize the limited performance of my "human machine interface" so that i get the information needed with as little latency as possible. I have limited time in my day and i don't need it unnecessarily wasted by looking for information. This means that web apps living in a browser tab get buried among everything else and are under the same taskbar icon as the browser. This wastes more time because it takes more than 1 click to bring up the application from any possible state of my windows desktop. Since tabs also sometimes need closing i tend to run "garbage collection" on them in batches where i start mass closing tabs related to things i am finished with, easily also inadvertently closing a web app and loosing unsaved work. This is one of the main reasons why i always have at least 2 browsers installed (My primary is Firefox) so that i can have a browser window that is quickly accessible but does not get lost in other browser windows and tabs as its a separate application in windows.

It might be fine if you only do one thing at a time on your PC, but i don't.

[Cerebus]

1) No need to buy

That's not a necessary or even true attribute of a web app. There are plenty of non-web apps that you don't have to buy (or otherwise pay for) and plenty of web apps for which you will have to part company with currency to use.

2) No need to install

True in most cases, meantime you can enjoy the supply chain attacks from all the libraries and frameworks that you dynamically side-download from npm and god knows where else at the behest of your web app, watch while it makes API calls to graph.facebook.com, google-analytics.com, gravatar and all the other web peeping toms.

3) Runs on any platform/OS

In your dreams. Web apps are just as fussy about browser/platform as any native app. I am totally sick to the back teeth of the number of browsers and specific browser setups/profiles that I have to keep around to satisfy the non-portable heap of crap web apps that I have to use on a daily basis (e.g. HPE iLO remote console, VMware vSphere web client, various Juniper web clients).

4) As fast as a native app

Rarely in my experience. Witness the laggy, chaotic heaps of crap that are Jira and Confluence.

5) As good as a native app

Again, rarely in my experience.

[tggzzz]

I'm still interested if GeorgeOfTheJungle (or anyone else) can indicate a benefit of a webapp over an plain app in this case.

1) No need to buy
2) No need to install
3) Runs on any platform/OS
4) As fast as a native app
5) As good as a native app

What's not to like about it?

1: many apps are free, many webapps aren't
2-5: as previously outlined, they aren't benefits to me in my use case

[tggzzz]

1) No need to buy

That's not a necessary or even true attribute of a web app. There are plenty of non-web apps that you don't have to buy (or otherwise pay for) and plenty of web apps for which you will have to part company with currency to use.

2) No need to install

True in most cases, meantime you can enjoy the supply chain attacks from all the libraries and frameworks that you dynamically side-download from npm and god knows where else at the behest of your web app, watch while it makes API calls to graph.facebook.com, google-analytics.com, gravatar and all the other web peeping toms.

3) Runs on any platform/OS

In your dreams. Web apps are just as fussy about browser/platform as any native app. I am totally sick to the back teeth of the number of browsers and specific browser setups/profiles that I have to keep around to satisfy the non-portable heap of crap web apps that I have to use on a daily basis (e.g. HPE iLO remote console, VMware vSphere web client, various Juniper web clients).

4) As fast as a native app

Rarely in my experience. Witness the laggy, chaotic heaps of crap that are Jira and Confluence.

5) As good as a native app

Again, rarely in my experience.

Pretty much, but many Android (etc) apps "call home", or rather "call the neighbourhood and prison". Just look at how many apps want permission to look at your call records etc!

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

2) No need to install

True in most cases, meantime you can enjoy the supply chain attacks from all the libraries and frameworks that you dynamically side-download from npm and god knows where else at the behest of your web app, watch while it makes API calls to graph.facebook.com, google-analytics.com, gravatar and all the other web peeping toms.

If you really believe the RTB2004 web app does that you're completely mistaken.

3) Runs on any platform/OS

In your dreams. Web apps are just as fussy about browser/platform as any native app. I am totally sick to the back teeth of the number of browsers and specific browser setups/profiles that I have to keep around to satisfy the non-portable heap of crap web apps that I have to use on a daily basis (e.g. HPE iLO remote console, VMware vSphere web client, various Juniper web clients).

See for example docs.google.com , that killed MS Office. Runs perfectly everywhere even with older browsers. Or maps.google.com : idem.

4) As fast as a native app

Rarely in my experience. Witness the laggy, chaotic heaps of crap that are Jira and Confluence.

I don't know what's Jira and Confluence. If it's crap don't use that.

5) As good as a native app

Again, rarely in my experience.

Better because it runs as fast and on any platform and you just have to type a url, done.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

I will admit i am also a bit allergic to web apps.

Me too, not because they can't be as good or better, but because many are crap apparently made by retards. On the other hand there's lots of native apps that are crap too. But I'm sure in the future all instruments -for remote control- will come with a web app not a native app. And then the people will have to learn to program them properly.

[Cerebus]

I don't know what's Jira and Confluence. If it's crap don't use that.

Ubiquitous task tracking and project documentation tools used by perhaps 50% of the development teams in the world and perhaps 80-90% of the DevOps world. If you haven't had them foist on you, you're lucky. In the real world one often doesn't get the luxury of saying 'I won't use that'; the management at the multi-billion dollar company that were paying my grossly inflated day rate last year wouldn't have taken kindly to me just saying 'nope' - if they want to waste that day rate on slowing me down with 'orrible tools that's their prerogative - doesn't mean I have to like it, but being overpaid to lump it is some consolation.

[SiliconWizard]

https://ziglang.org/
https://nim-lang.org/

Oh, I knew about nim, and I have seen tens (hundreds maybe, although that's a bit of a stretch) of other languages, but had never heard of zig. Thanks for pointing it out. Nice candidate apparently for a "yet another prog language to replace C". As I often say, there seems to be more of them than people that know how to program (just slightly kidding )

I'll have a look anyway. Always fun, and hey, what do I know, it could actually be different.

[obiwanjacobi]

I like Zig better than C. C should have been replaced a couple of decades ago. A sure sign to me that that there is little software innovation in hardware land... Of course you guys will disagree - and that is fine.

[Mechatrommer]

still has that stupid ";"