After Python Dojo catch up

All ESP8266 boards running MicroPython.
Official boards are the Adafruit Huzzah and Feather boards.
Target audience: MicroPython users with an ESP8266 board.
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andreagrandi
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After Python Dojo catch up

Post by andreagrandi » Fri Mar 04, 2016 11:35 am

Hi everyone,

first of all thank you so much to Damien for coming at London Python Dojo yesterday evening (ref: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/london-p ... 2365980249# ). We have been able to flash our boards with a preview release of the Micro Python port for ESP8266 and play a little bit with existing modules. That was great.

Today I wanted to keep hacking on the board and I also wanted to write a small tutorial but... I just realised that I can't redistribute yesterday firmware as it contains sensible informations (some hard coded config, can't be more specific, sorry) and I don't have a way to get the source code nor a clean pre-compiled firmware to flash the board with.

I also don't have any instructions about how to connect to a different (than the one we used yesterday) wifi network.

I know that Damien is planning to clean the code a little bit first and then release it, but this is a little different from what it was promised during the Kickstarter campaign: "We will release the source code on GitHub as soon as the campaign ends".

I personally don't mind if the code is not "clean". I don't expect it to be, as it's still in development. I would just want:

- source code access
- instructions to setup dev environment
- instructions to compile it
- instructions to flash the firmware (I can provide this one)
- instructions to connect to a wifi network (it's already possible and I saw the source code but I don't know where to find that module). Update: someone on IRC just gave me this https://bitbucket.org/thesheep/esp8266u ... ew-default but he mentioned it could change soon.

Please Damien, don't let us wait for too long :)

Thanks!

mad474
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Re: After Python Dojo catch up

Post by mad474 » Fri Mar 04, 2016 12:11 pm

andreagrandi wrote:thank you so much to Damien for coming at London Python Dojo yesterday evening (ref: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/london-p ... 2365980249# ). We have been able to flash our boards with a preview release of the Micro Python port for ESP8266 and play a little bit with existing modules. That was great.
London MicroPython lobby receives benefits. Discrimination! :D

Damien
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Re: After Python Dojo catch up

Post by Damien » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:18 pm

Paul and I have been working on the ESP8266 port in a private repository for the last few months. There are 100's of commits and they all need to be merged into the main repository. This merging needs to be done cleanly (some things have to be removed, some squashed, some changed), which will take a week or so.

Since the end of the campaign we have started this merge process, so I'd say that counts fairly as "releasing as soon as the campaign ends". Sorry, but the "release" part takes us time, it can't be done in one instant!

As for instructions to set up a dev env, compile and flash, see here: https://github.com/micropython/micropyt ... er/esp8266

Documentation for wifi connection will come!

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andreagrandi
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Re: After Python Dojo catch up

Post by andreagrandi » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:28 pm

Hi Damien, thanks for your reply :)

Don't worry if everything is not in a "ready" state yet, I'm just trying to put together some instructions for people who were at the Dojo yesterday evening or for people who already have an ESP8266 board to use.

I will write them in the simplest form possible to make them accessible and easy to use. Someone also told me how to connect to the wifi and I will write these instructions too.

Cheers

pfalcon
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Re: After Python Dojo catch up

Post by pfalcon » Fri Mar 04, 2016 2:10 pm

To all: Damien was invited to London Python Dojo, and after considering it, we thought it may be a good opportunity to collect initial feedback, to make sure we can cover common issues in release notes sent to early-access backers.

andreagrandi, per the rules of our Kickstarter campaign, the first parties to get access to the firmware are backers who made significant contribution to the Kickstarter campaign. Participants of London Python Dojo got personal exception to play with early firmware. So, we'd appreciate if you treated this matter as personal and avoided leaving impression that MicroPython ESP8266 team breaches their obligations before the campaign backers (I'm sure nobody will be offended, and it's not too big deal as the project is open, but I felt need to post this notice).

And we appreciate your enthusiasm of course - very soon we'll start official docs and will gladly accept help and pull requests for them.

Damien, I guess the best course now is to send early release to the backers sooner rather than later.
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mad474
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Re: After Python Dojo catch up

Post by mad474 » Fri Mar 04, 2016 2:45 pm

Hopefully I was not taken seriously. I've stopped hyperventilating (no worry!) and got the toolchain working :-D

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andreagrandi
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Re: After Python Dojo catch up

Post by andreagrandi » Fri Mar 04, 2016 2:51 pm

mad474 wrote:Hopefully I was not taken seriously. I've stopped hyperventilating (no worry!) and got the toolchain working :-D
I got the joke, don't worry :)

p.s: I also tried to get the toolchain to work but it looks like there are a few problems with OSX https://dpaste.de/KwGQ
I googled a bit, but it looks like I'm supposed to mess with toolchain source code etc... I will just try with my Linux machine once I get back home, maybe it will be easier. Did you use Linux to have it working?

mad474
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Re: After Python Dojo catch up

Post by mad474 » Fri Mar 04, 2016 2:55 pm

andreagrandi wrote:Did you use Linux to have it working?
Yep, Debian 8.3 (jessie).

woodat
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Re: After Python Dojo catch up

Post by woodat » Fri Mar 04, 2016 4:08 pm

pfalcon wrote:To all: Damien was invited to London Python Dojo, and after considering it, we thought it may be a good opportunity to collect initial feedback, to make sure we can cover common issues in release notes sent to early-access backers.

andreagrandi, per the rules of our Kickstarter campaign, the first parties to get access to the firmware are backers who made significant contribution to the Kickstarter campaign. Participants of London Python Dojo got personal exception to play with early firmware. So, we'd appreciate if you treated this matter as personal and avoided leaving impression that MicroPython ESP8266 team breaches their obligations before the campaign backers (I'm sure nobody will be offended, and it's not too big deal as the project is open, but I felt need to post this notice).

And we appreciate your enthusiasm of course - very soon we'll start official docs and will gladly accept help and pull requests for them.

Damien, I guess the best course now is to send early release to the backers sooner rather than later.
Live feedback can be some of the best feedback. Given the open-source nature of this project anyway, I really doubt anyone'll be harsh on the fact you guys conscripted a small team of pythoneers to provide a bit of testing for an evening :)

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andreagrandi
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Re: After Python Dojo catch up

Post by andreagrandi » Sat Mar 05, 2016 11:43 am

I'd like to clarify, as a Dojo attendee, and in Damien "defence", that attendees didn't have any particular bonus compared to campaign backers. Damien was supposed to loan his own boards just for the evening but there were not enough so a couple of us used our own and we had to flash them, but that preliminary firmware can't even be redistributed, because it contains a "specific configuration" for the Dojo :)

I hope our feedback as users has been useful for him to make the project even better for everyone.

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