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CircuitPython: Programming Hardware in Python

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Re: CircuitPython: Programming Hardware in Python

#51

Post by sarusso »

jscholes wrote: post #9

I've used CircuitPython for one production hardware project which is in the wild. Safe to say that the increased draw on the included battery and higher memory usage weren't a concern here, but they are both significant. Developer productivity is through the roof though. I'd say the biggest pain points for me (unless I'm missing something/they've added more stuff recently) were created by the lack of support for what…

It would be very interesting to hear more about your project and, if you did some benchmarks, about the increased draw on the battery.

Re: CircuitPython: Programming Hardware in Python

#52

Post by ogou »

Adafruit’s goal is the success of Adafruit. They built an increasingly closed ecosystem on the shoulders of a constellation of open source projects. Success is no sin, but I’m tired of their branded bloatware being touted as groundbreaking. Their development choices are commercially expedient and designed to capture market share instead of contributing to the greater success of the open source maker movement that enables their existence.

Re: CircuitPython: Programming Hardware in Python

#53

Post by ntoll »

ogou wrote: post #52

Adafruit’s goal is the success of Adafruit. They built an increasingly closed ecosystem on the shoulders of a constellation of open source projects. Success is no sin, but I’m tired of their branded bloatware being touted as groundbreaking. Their development choices are commercially expedient and designed to capture market share instead of contributing to the greater success of the open source maker movement that ena…

I'm an open source contributor. I've worked/collaborated with Adafruit. They support the ecosystem. Perhaps they don't blow their own trumpet in this respect (and should, so you could see how the do give back).

My experience is a counter example of your comment, "...instead of contributing to the greater success of the open source maker movement that enables their existence".

Re: CircuitPython: Programming Hardware in Python

#54

Post by amelius »

ogou wrote: post #52

Adafruit’s goal is the success of Adafruit. They built an increasingly closed ecosystem on the shoulders of a constellation of open source projects. Success is no sin, but I’m tired of their branded bloatware being touted as groundbreaking. Their development choices are commercially expedient and designed to capture market share instead of contributing to the greater success of the open source maker movement that ena…

You can say the same thing about Apple, which, by the way, is also a kind of fruit. It looks like the fruity companies are reaping all the fruits from open source software.

Re: CircuitPython: Programming Hardware in Python

#56

Post by ashkankiani »

pansa2 wrote: post #44
pkolaczk wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Developer productivity is through the roof though." I learned Python after I learned C, C++, Java, Scala, Rust and a few others. I fail to see my productivity going through the roof with Python. It's quite the opposite. Writing initial code is fast, but making it work well - not so much.

Presumably the parent is comparing Python to C. There’s no way anyone is more productive in C than in Python.

That's a really disappointing attitude to see in the wild.

Re: CircuitPython: Programming Hardware in Python

#57

Post by schwartzworld »

bmitc wrote: post #36
Uhrheber wrote: post #35

CircuitPython is a toy language made for running on Adafruit's halloween/cosplaying gadgets. It doesn't even support interrupts. Better use Micropython.

What I don’t understand is: what features of Python encourage its use in embedded systems in the first place? Why not F# or Elixir?

Lots of developers already know python, and if you don't it's easy to get rolling.

Re: CircuitPython: Programming Hardware in Python

#59

Post by sokoloff »

pansa2 wrote: post #44
pkolaczk wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Developer productivity is through the roof though." I learned Python after I learned C, C++, Java, Scala, Rust and a few others. I fail to see my productivity going through the roof with Python. It's quite the opposite. Writing initial code is fast, but making it work well - not so much.

Presumably the parent is comparing Python to C. There’s no way anyone is more productive in C than in Python.

For twiddling GPIO pins, I can be most productive in C (or the C subset of c++ for pedants).

Twiddling GPIO pins and doing other bit gymnastics is a fair bit of simple sensor interface microcontroller projects, which is a large overlap with the target for CircuitPython.

Re: CircuitPython: Programming Hardware in Python

#60

Post by sokoloff »

ogou wrote: post #52

Adafruit’s goal is the success of Adafruit. They built an increasingly closed ecosystem on the shoulders of a constellation of open source projects. Success is no sin, but I’m tired of their branded bloatware being touted as groundbreaking. Their development choices are commercially expedient and designed to capture market share instead of contributing to the greater success of the open source maker movement that ena…

This is a much more negative take than I have on Adafruit. Adafruit is, to me, a great provider of breakout boards and gives generously to the community while trying to stay in business. They might be slightly more profitable if they closed off everything they could. I’ve used their libraries on a lot of projects without using their hardware.

Their stuff works, is open, and when I used one of their LSM6DS dev boards on a 32-bit micro, it had an underflow bug; because that board and library was open-source, I could fix it the same afternoon I got the package. The fix was simple and obvious, they accepted my pull request, and now no one else has to waste that hour. That’s the power of open source to me.

I hold Adafruit and Limor in a positive light and think their “bloatware” is very effective in making electronics accessible to many more people than before, much the same as the $30 Arduino did for the $2 AVR. The ecosystem and accessibility matter.

I agree that they’re seeking success of Adafruit, and agree that’s not a bad thing, but I don’t see how they’re going closed. What is “closed” about their ecosystem? The article we’re discussing is about MIT-licensed software on their GitHub.

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