What others think of Parallax
Franklin
Posts: 4,747
I know those of you here are supporters but this is what others think.
The whole thread is here http://www.adafruit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=21065&view=unread#unreadSo the Propeller could be useful in certain applications, but Parallax has always been very sketchy with documentation so I've never bothered to learn it. Even now, there isn't a 100% open source tool chain. Any documentation necessary to create what open source tools exist has had to be reversed engineered. Parallax needs to start acting like every other processor maker has since the dawn of time and provide proper documentation. Until then, I consider the propeller a waste of time.
Comments
I would agree that getting adequate documentation has been much too difficult. I understand that the major stumbling blocks have primarily been that of limited resources. On the other hand, keeping things proprietary has gotten in the way, particularly regarding the Spin interpretive code. Once the protection scheme was broken, stuff (ROM source code) was made available, but there never has been adequate official documentation done on the Spin interpretive code. People have figured it out and have documented their findings, but there needs to be some kind of official documentation, even if it's just an edited (and polished) version of what's already been posted by others.
Things look better for the future. Parallax has committed to using open source tools for the Prop II and, with ParallaxSemiconductor, it looks like there may be adequate documentation when the Prop II is ready to be released. Hopefully, the Prop I documentation will be updated as part of that process.
I think the Adafruit criticism is a little too strong, but there are some good points made. Life in the past was never really as good as the short memory of the Adafruit commentator implied. There was a lot of stuff un- or poorly documented about several of the early microprocessors and the tool chains were very proprietary for a long time. Heaven help you if you even tried to write your own assembler from scratch using the manufacturer's instruction mnemonics or assembler statement format.
Seriously, some valid points were made, Parallax is aware of these issues, and they are working to correct them. Things will get better.
-Phil
Brilliant, the guy is going to slag off something he knows nothing about.
@Mike Green,
Problem: The Propeller Tool is written for Windows and is closed source. Many developers run MACs or Linux or whatever. So the Prop Tool is a pain for them to use. They would have to have two PC's or dual boot or run a virtual machine to use the Prop Tool. That's too much to ask and those developers move on to some other device as a consequence.
Solution: Imagine the Propeller Tool was written in C or C++ and that it's source code were available under the GPL. Soon after release someone would have taken that code and got it running on Linux and/or Mac and/or whatever. Or the Prop Tools source would have been a jolly good reference for building a cross platfor tool. BradC would not have had to work so hard to create BSTC, BSTL and BST.
This way the prop finds it way to a larger audience. And some of that larger audience will provide the effort to spread it further by porting to other platforms.
There are other issues with closed source but that's enough for now.
I do think it is poor show that the Spin byte codes are not documented officially in great detail. After all given that a) the Spin interpreter is in ROM and b) writing large PASM programs is impossible, then the Spin byte codes are effectively the instruction set of the machine.
It does look like Parallax is making a great effort to remedy many of these issues. Which I'm very happy to see.
I once needed an assembler for the TI9995. We couldn't afford the exhorbitant price TI wanted for their full assembler, and the one supplied with their evaluation kit was useless, so I wrote my own on a TRS-80 using macros, using the Microsoft Macro80 assembler. It only took me a couple of days.
What like when I first used the Intel 8080/8085? For sure the expensive assembler from Intel was not open source. There was only one high level language for it PL/M 80. Also expensive and closed source. That's before we get on to the $10000 development system.
Kids today don't know how lucky they are.
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/05/04/parallax-semiconductor-new-company-spun-off-from-parallax/comment-page-1/#comment-20149
OBC
Call me un-professional, but all this about built-ADCs, common programming languages, and especially built in debuggers seems a little silly to me. I've always just assumed "debugging" was outputting lines to a serial terminal, an ADC was something done in software, and every chip had a unique instruction set that required a learning curve (regardless of language). I knew of micros that had these features, I just thought that it set them apart, not made them better.
First one must realize that the opinions mentioned on the Adafruit forums are bound to be somewhat critical. Why? I found that the forums for a microcontroller will be biased towards that microcontroller. The audience of that forum will be loyal and may only hear of other microcontrollers by word of mouth and vague facts by briefly looking into other chips. For example how do people here think of the Arduino?
I personally feel each microcontroller is equal. I'm continuously trying out different ones and finding out the strengths and weaknesses of each. I have found the Propeller to be best in handling sound and video. Like Holly mentioned in another thread about writing about interfacing the Arduino and Propeller I too am thinking of writing on how to use the Propeller with various other chips in hopes of enlightening loyalists of other chips to the power of the Propeller.
The perceived weakness of not having dedicated hardware peripherals may be due to the view that you must used "emulated" hardware by bit banging. This brings up thoughts of it being slow, hard to use, and large code overhead without realizing the flexibility it provides.
I agree that documentation and support is of utmost importance. I have a chip with 512K sram and 512K flash that is a real powerhouse that just sits around collecting dust. This is because the volumes of documentation was converted into English or in German and full of errors. The online forum for it had its last posting sometime in 2006!
What makes a certain microcontroller great? Its not the chip itself but the creativity behind it. The people of this forum and Parallax have shown it in abundance!!!! I feel that is why the Propeller happens to be my chip of choice.
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Most of the industrial bunch that I work with would not have any thing to do with an other language like SPIN
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They learned DOS,BASIC,C####, or Assy. in collage and Your not gonna teach them anything else.
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So this kicks the Industrial bunch to the curb, Since there is no other compiler supported by Parallax to write in anything other then SPIN with the Propeller.
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All of my Industrial friends like the BS2's, But it doesn't meet the speed needed in an Industrial environment like the Prop does.
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I'll Aways be here no mater what!
Limor and Phillip of Adafruit are friends of ours and we have the greatest respect for their products and efforts. I also don't want ill will or back and forth banter. In the open-source world I think they're the best.
Not too much into locking threads, but maybe we can just keep a positive perspective on what everybody does best. And there's nothing wrong with having your favorite microcontroller (I do!).
Ken Gracey
The Prop is a fantastic chip and if it had the resources and funds that the majors have, they would have sold many times more than Parallax. But this would only have been because of better marketing reach and exposure. The Prop chip has not yet reached anywhere near its potential and has not yet had the exposure it deserves. Hopefully Parallax Semiconductor can help in getting the exposure it deserves. The concept and instruction set IMHO is second to none. In fact, because the Prop is so unique and powerful, we are all trying to make it do things that were not what it was intended to do. Perhaps if we settled for a lot less functionality in our designs, life would be simpler... but what would the challenge be in that??
Lastly, for a hobby project, provided the Prop will do the job, I will use it, irrespective of cost because I like the ease of programming the chip. It is not that expensive really when compared to other chips, and I always have some in my drawer. For commercial designs, provided I am not cost constrained, and the Prop will do the job, the Prop will be used. It will cost far less for R&D, at least for me, than any other chip that can do the job. I have no doubts it will be available for a long time.
This sums up my opinion of Parallax pretty well.
All of the above. Well said.
I would never in my life have imagined that a company designing a new micro-controller would be asking me and all the other users of it's products what features they would like to see in the new chip.
And blittled is right. As my friend who is into cars used to say "all cars are wonderful things", he loved cars and driving, I've never seen anyone get some much fun out of driving pretty much anything to it's limit. He had no time for a slanging match about what is the better car. He was to busy enjoying them all:)
The truth is that open source has traditionally developed independently of the manufacturer.
Frankly, I love and admire Linux as the open source community is extremely empowering to a learner while commercial OSes seem to obscure real engineering fact.
The simple fact is Parallax can only afford to do so much. Then it is up to the user community to do the rest. Ardunio never developed an innovative chip - they are using an off the shelf commercial product.
Unfortunately these continuing discussions, and somewhat redundant in parts, like this one reminds me of ongoing “feud” between the Mac and PC.
Computer is a tool, and one should always use tool suitable to the task. You use different hammers to build a birdhouse than to build a barn. It cannot get any simpler than that.
I can sense than majority of participants here are techies, they can point out minute details of Prop.
However they seems to lack some basic business 101 knowledge.
They admire Parallax for many wonderful things they do and blissfully missing the primary objective of a company to be in business. Allow me to spell it out for you - make money!.
However, the “cool” technology by itself cannot be sufficient for success. I would hope we did learn that lesson from history - VHS versus Beta.
If you can build a better mouse trap using Prop, than you do not need these discussions convincing us about how wonderful Prop is.
I am from Missouri - show me!
Vaclav
thanks ken!
we wanted to stop in make sure everyone knew the comments in forums and blog posts do not reflect our views and likes. some folks love propeller, some don't - there are passionate communities around each micro, that's for sure! if someone says something that has nothing to do with the discussion we'll ask them to keep it nice.
we carry parallax products in our store at adafruit and we respect, admire and like everything parallax is doing!
'No apology necessary. More information is always better than less. However sobering or misguided they may be, the opinions and reactions of potential customers can always inform a company's marketing strategy. And, yes, everyone is a potential customer. It's just a matter of how to effect the conversion.
-Phil
Everyone will always have their favorites, and there's always going to be disagreement and contention between the different groups, because humans are involved.
I think the best way to interest people in the Propeller and enlighten them on it's merits is to have and share a bunch of cool projects using them.
Roy
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I think it's a great post.
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As a forum member I think we are an extension of Parallax.
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I think we relay info to Parallax on what the current market is.
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And how Parallax should adjust their sales,Marketing, and development.
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With our support, We show new comers how to do this or that.
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This takes time off of Parallax to make great things.
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Asking some one how were doing, Is only constructive criticism