as many mentioned, it is also easily possible to use thonny ide for programming which would make it a lot easier. Kevin Köck
Thanks, Kevin; that is indeed my plan.
Well, I have to say that building your own version of MicroPython is more challenging, but your students won't have to do that once you have. John Ellis
Exactly. that's why I'm starting to believe that MicroPython will actually work for this class.
However, and forgive my possible misunderstanding, isn't ulab a module that you can use with standard MicroPython? John Ellis
That is not my understanding. At least, the docs seem to say that rebuilding the firmware is necessary (since ulab is written in C). But I've not gotten to that point yet, so if somebody knows for sure that I'm mistaken that would be good to know.
it seems to me that this driver problem is like *the* thing holding you back. Perhaps it would be better to tackle that first. I.e. take a step back and imagine you didn't have that problem and your board just worked under Windows, would you still ask the question whether MicroPython is the right hammer? Stijn
You're guessing correctly
. For me personally, that's my largest source of frustration. Second-most is that the documentation seems (to me at least) to have the flavor of being written largely by hobbyists in their spare time
. That's not meant as a flame, just as a statement that it's human nature for people (especially unpaid people) to target documentation at people like themselves. And since my background is CPU design rather than embedded, it's often a bit mysterious to me. But not terminally so.
I'd personally just try to get that fixed first. For example by asking on this forum. Stijn
Sigh... I did just that, of course -- with the result that nobody could offer any help with anything except for Linux. That's exactly what first sent me down the road of wondering who the real target of MicroPython is. So, e.g., the MicroPython documentation often references a document called "Care and feeding of Pythons at the Redmond Zoo" for dealing with Windows. The document does not have a date on it; however, one might guess its age from the fact that its list of the available Windows O/S's does not mention the existence of Windows 10. In my case, I'm lucky that I have the backing of an IT department that will set me up on Linux, and then (as John Ellis mentions above) the students don't have to deal with these issues.
Well I already used micropython at work for quick prototyping and a simple board to control a simple car part for demonstrational purposes.
While developing the same program in c++ might have cost me multiple days, in micropython I was done after a single day (it was a small program). Kevin Köck
Fair point; people in industry make quick prototypes all the time.
The question about industrial/commercial use of MicroPython comes up every now and then. Here are some threads:
viewtopic.php?t=7911
viewtopic.php?t=7134
viewtopic.php?t=4259
It doesn’t seem to be as clear-cut as you make it. Sometimes performance and power usage is not what matters. Sometimes ease (and therefore cost) of development matters. Christian Walther
Thanks. Those were quite interesting.
Not all commercial applications have production runs of 1000++. Some, like test jigs, are one-offs. Others have small production runs. MicroPython would have saved untold hours of development time. Peter Hinch
Agreed; it will be interesting to see what happens in a few years. For now, it seems like the appropriate summary is "some industrial usage where short development times outweigh speed or power concerns."
Thanks, all!
/Joel