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Chirimen, a Firefox OS-Powered IoT Single-Board Computer Developed by Mozilla

mozopenhard.mozillafactory.org

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Re: Chirimen, a Firefox OS-Powered IoT Single-Board Computer Developed by Mozilla

#3

Post by jokoon »

"Make Real Things with Browser Technologies"

How is that better or so different than making real things in C ? What problem would it solve?

I get that js got very popular thanks to browsers, but does that mean we should use js for everything?

Seems like mozilla is just trying to salvage firefoxOS.

Re: Chirimen, a Firefox OS-Powered IoT Single-Board Computer Developed by Mozilla

#5

Post by userbinator »

raffomania wrote: post #2

I never understood why people want to use browser technologies for the internet of things.

I think it's just unfamiliarity with anything else, and unawareness of the staggering complexity this introduces. Also, this is Mozilla who have a large concentration of people familiar with browser technologies.

On the other hand, I think IoTs with web interfaces aren't a bad idea.

Re: Chirimen, a Firefox OS-Powered IoT Single-Board Computer Developed by Mozilla

#6

Post by Already__Taken »

jokoon wrote: post #3

"Make Real Things with Browser Technologies" How is that better or so different than making real things in C ? What problem would it solve? I get that js got very popular thanks to browsers, but does that mean we should use js for everything? Seems like mozilla is just trying to salvage firefoxOS.

I've developed a few things on my Espruino Pico[1] board, some Raspberry pi and also so arduino things. Just toys really.

One of the nice this I've found with the Pico is because of the JS vm, when I don't do anything in the code all the power in the chip goes to sleep state, and just wakes up for me as I've got scheduled. Yes Arduino has sleeps but i've also go to go learn that as another thing, yes the Pi can be configured so but that's even more tinkering.

JS seems like a really great "Just get it done" sort of phase to work in. After that you'd no doubt make a better job of the project with a myriad of other technologies.

1: http://www.espruino.com/Pico

Re: Chirimen, a Firefox OS-Powered IoT Single-Board Computer Developed by Mozilla

#7

Post by scotu »

jokoon wrote: post #3

"Make Real Things with Browser Technologies" How is that better or so different than making real things in C ? What problem would it solve? I get that js got very popular thanks to browsers, but does that mean we should use js for everything? Seems like mozilla is just trying to salvage firefoxOS.

not that I like javascript that much, nor I know how meaningful are the result you can get with js in iot-firefoxOS, but js is absolutely more approachable than C so there's that problem that can be solved (lowering the barriers to access hacking on some iot device).

Re: Chirimen, a Firefox OS-Powered IoT Single-Board Computer Developed by Mozilla

#8

Post by jokoon »

raffomania wrote: post #2

I never understood why people want to use browser technologies for the internet of things.

Browsers allowed developers to bring new things to customers quickly, because it was the only decent way of developing application that could work with Windows. It was the only way good open source software could "breach" how microsoft was doing business and putting barriers to the internet.

The problem is that now, we should move on, and use something else than a browser. Maybe it involves inventing an alternative to html, or making all application networking p2p. Not talking only about bitcoin. Also, html is so much focused on TCP, and not on real time networking.

I'm not dismissing the web, but to me it seems that it's the only decent standard to do things, and there's really nothing else.

Re: Chirimen, a Firefox OS-Powered IoT Single-Board Computer Developed by Mozilla

#9

Post by jacquesm »

userbinator wrote: post #5
raffomania wrote: post #2

I never understood why people want to use browser technologies for the internet of things.

I think it's just unfamiliarity with anything else, and unawareness of the staggering complexity this introduces. Also, this is Mozilla who have a large concentration of people familiar with browser technologies. On the other hand, I think IoTs with web interfaces aren't a bad idea.

> I think IoTs with web interfaces aren't a bad idea.

I think it is. The internet-of-things does not need to suffer from massive power consumption and hard to implement on the micro-controller scale protocols.

It needs something much more along the lines of encrypted UDP than that it needs to use 'web technologies'. Imagining a stack made on 'web technologies' running off power harvested over a relatively long period of time is painful.

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