BBC Micro:bit computer now available to all for £13 • Hacker News Board

Re: BBC Micro:bit computer now available to all for £13

#41

Post by pawadu » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 9:00 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #22

pawadu wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Getting started really really quickly would be 1. sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-none-eabi 2. make Instead, we have this extreme tool-bloat where a tiny tiny executable is produced using python, python-setup, cmake, libffi, libssl, clang, pip and finally yotta in addition to GCC and binutils (which is really all you should need). Can someone please explain to me this new trend of in-house tools and tool-blo…

Ok now how do you change targets to a different board (e.g. nRF51-DK), and have the LEDs and USB serial still work with no changes? How do you install the BLE dependencies? How do you use apt-get on Windows? I agree it could be easier and also agree that Python and CMake are the wrong tools for the job, but frankly apt and make would be worse. At least they seem to have designed the module description system fairly n…

What you mention is a board/library issue not a tool issue. But looking at how the AVR community has solved this, it is certainty solvable at "apt-get level".

Also, apt-get works just fine on Windows 10 nowadays :)

edit: For the record, there is nothing wrong with a new tool system. But adding layers of layers of complexity and dependencies to something simple just because you couldn't care to learn to do things the standard way only creates problems for you and your users.

Re: BBC Micro:bit computer now available to all for £13

#42

Post by Already__Taken » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 1:37 PM UTC

scoot wrote: post #13

Already__Taken wrote: post #7

Espruino works nicely on these as micro python can't do Bluetooth on it.

I'm not familiar with Espruino (love the form-factor of the pico though!), but this page [1] only mentions BLE in the context of programming the device. Are you sure it has a driver / library to support the micro:bit BLE? [1] http://www.espruino.com/MicroBit

Yes you can but it's early days so I'm sure there's more that needs work - http://www.espruino.com/Reference#NRF

Someone had to ask [further](http://forum.espruino.com/conversations/284474/#comment12898...)

Re: BBC Micro:bit computer now available to all for £13

#43

Post by technomancy » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 2:48 PM UTC

gunmania0 wrote: post #40

technomancy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is you want to be able to program on the board rather than having it be useless without attaching it to a PC. For that you need both IO and an onboard compiler or interpreter. MicroPython is right out; it would almost fit Lua, but as it is it looks like your only option for independent development would be Forth.

You can flash it over Bluetooth?

No. The point is being able to do development live without needing to upload a new image every time you want to try something new.