|
I've been writing IoT stuff a lot lately because I've been building them for work, and for fun for that matter as of late.
They're really great, but they make it a challenge for me to come up with content. I feel like my articles are necessarily shorter, more like tips because it's not nice to just throw a bunch of libraries at an embedded device just to abstract, nor is it easy to make one that's general purpose, so what you wind up with are spells, or if you must "recipes" more than anything: "Here's the general idea, tweak it to taste and effect" and there you go.
And the trick I think, with getting good at these, is getting a bunch of these spells/recipes together, and also getting good at creating them.
Spells and recipes make for garbage coding articles but great cooking articles - see hansel and gretel of the brothers grimm. They really do. They're more art than technical skill. I love them for that, but teaching magic to other people can be tricky. And cooking wayward children is NSFW.
So I'm not really sure where to go with a lot of these. I can't provide readers with nifty drop in coding gadgets, it's all cut to fit. And by that I mean you better know how to use a multi-meter as well as get by without a debugger just for the basics.
I don't know. I feel like the ones I write tend to leave the reader with less than I'd like but I have nothing consistent to offer that would satisfy both me and I think, them.
Hmmm.
Real programmers use butterflies
|
|
|
|
|
Have you thought of blogging? It might be a more appropriate form than technical articles.
Mircea
|
|
|
|
|
I don't really have an existing platform, and am frankly, not looking to manage my own readership, if that makes sense.
Real programmers use butterflies
|
|
|
|
|
There's programming; and there's electronics. (Soldering!?)
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
|
|
|
|
|
And then there's IoT development which is an unholy union of the two. 
Real programmers use butterflies
|
|
|
|
|
There's nothing wrong with tips, you can improve them into articles later, when you get your inspiration back.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
Never stop dreaming - Freddie Kruger
|
|
|
|
|
They will probably never be articles, if only because their nature resists article format. Everything is one-off - requires modification. Everything is a starter project because there aren't any grand frameworks or fancy libraries for the most part.
Having said that, I am writing a JSON library for them that's probably as fancy as I'll ever get with libraries on these things. That at least, will be an article. I'm porting my LexContext to IoT which is actually pretty cool.
The exception to all this is completed devices like my smart clock - since i dictate all the hardware and software end to end, I can fashion a complete article around it.
Real programmers use butterflies
|
|
|
|
|
Providing bare recipes is fine! And just explain that "This code illustrates the bare necessities. In a real system you must do 1,2,3,4 ... error handling, logging, better modularisation, ..., ..., ...
"
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
|
|
|
|
|
Well, yes expect the recipes in this case often require modification, not just addition. It's cut-to-fit like I said - one of the downsides of no frameworks and disparate hardware.
Real programmers use butterflies
|
|
|
|
|
I started reading this book, The Go Programming Language, The (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series) 1st Edition (Donovan & Kernighan)[^], on a whim, just to see what Go was all about and now I'm discovering how nice the language is.
Interestingly, this book will remind you of the old book K&R C (and Brian Kernighan is one of the authors).
Here are a couple of interesting things that Go does:
1) makes it very easy to build to a native Exe --
a) on Linux you can just do
$ go build hello.go
That will build the native exe named hello and it even handles making the file executable (no need to run chmod 777)
b) There's not a huge toolchain to learn. Just use the Go command. it's kind of nice.
2) Go is "smaller" and so it feels like the days of past when you could actually wrap your head around a language instead of feeling like you could never learn it all.
3) It makes retrieving data over HTTP much easier than other languages -- more like just opening a file.
4) It cleans up concurrency issues / makes them easier to handle
It feels like learning a language that keeps you focused. Sometimes stuff is so huge now that you are going in a million directions with various tech like CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Angular, TypeScript.
Now, I'm just interested in why I might choose Go over something like Rust (or vice-versa).
Have you tried out Go? What have your experiences with it been?
modified 6-Dec-20 15:07pm.
|
|
|
|
|
|
That’s another positive about learning Go : you can get tools installed quickly and try it out with low impact. Probably get it set up in 5 minutes if you already have VS Code.
That’s a nice list on that slant url.
|
|
|
|
|
I see that list has 'CON no GUI Designer' .. yet I don't think that's actually a CON - Go is good at what is is intended for, and as far as I'm led to believe, that doesn't included GUI's anyway - we all know there are better languages for GUI's/Front-Ends
|
|
|
|
|
That's true, but a lot of (old farts) like me are used to having a GUI designer, guess it all depends what purpose you will be using a language for ...
|
|
|
|
|
Of course you are referring to VB6 
|
|
|
|
|
raddevus wrote: (no need to run chmod 777)
There never is. chmod a+x would be a better choice.
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
|
|
|
|
|
Haha I always forget my chmod values.
I was trying to say make it exe for everyone.
These are the things I’ve googled for 15 years. 
I’m terrible about memorizing things. Let the internet remember for me.
|
|
|
|
|
raddevus wrote: I’m terrible about memorizing things. Let the internet remember for me.
“Never memorize something that you can look up.”
― Albert Einstein
I have bad memory for some things too... I have always used this quote everytime that I forgot a formula or something like that.  
The "kiss my ass" variation when someone was trying to piss me off was:
I prefer to use my brain understanding things, because I can always look up what I forget. In your case is more difficult 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
|
|
|
|
|
Another relevant one : "Quote: It is better to understand something than to memorize something. - Neil Degrasse Tyson
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
|
|
|
|
|
Nice...
I didn't know about that one. It was exactly my point
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
|
|
|
|
|
Not memorizing the drwxrwxrwx mask is like not memorizing the syntax of a while loop: yes you can always look it up, but is it worth to look every time that you have to write a while?
Besides, the syntax
chmod a + x
All add eXecution
o - w
Others Remove Write
is easier than remembering even the drwxrwxrwx mask since they are pretty simple declarations of intent.
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
|
|
|
|
|
|
Quote: I’m terrible about memorizing things
When I (for some reason) did a Law degree, one of the first things they taught us was not to memorize things but to learn how to look them up when needed. Which was fine except the exams required us to memorize things! 
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
|
|
|
|
|
� Forogar � wrote: they taught us was not to memorize things but to learn how to look them up when needed. Which was fine except the exams required us to memorize things!
That's Academia for you: Paradoxical Situations.
Do as your told, not as you think, but make sure you think for yourself.
|
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
