Will the propellent library DLL still be available for the Prop2 chip?
Keith Leinenbach
Posts: 25
For those who do not use Microsoft C++ or GNU C++, but enjoy the flexibility offered by the language neutral Propellent Library DLL, will this tool be updated for the Prop2 or is this being discontinued?
Keith
Keith
Comments
Roy
Thanks Roy. I really appreciate that you have taken this on. When the Prop 2 arrives, it is nice to know that there is going to be an avenue for Prop 1 users who want to migrate. I find it a bit hard to understand why Parallax has not made all this crystal clear before now - I was beginning to think I was the only one wondering about stuff like this!
Ross.
It would be crazy not to have Spin for the Prop II. Spin and the bytecode interpreter are part of the Propeller architecture. Not enabling the migration of all those OBEX objects, and thosands of user programs, would mean the loss of a huge lot of sales to all those Prop users eagerly wating for P2.
Hmmm. Not so sure about that. I didn't ask the original question, and it has previously been asked elswehere and never answered. So I'm obviously not the only one who's been wondering.
If anyone were in a position to know, it would presumably be Roy - and he doesn't seem all that sure.
Still, it seems we now will - even if Roy has to do it himself, so all is good
Ross.
Now why would there be no answer to the question about Spin and PII?
1) Parallax has not heard the question.
2) The answer is so obvious it does not need answering. Like "Is the Pope a Catholic?"
3) They are too embarrassed to tell us that Spin has been canceled and is unsupported for Prop II.
Me, I'm betting on the Pope being a Catholic:)
The only thing I wasn't sure on was the specifics of propellent.dll being updated for Prop2, or if there would be some other thing that provided similar functions. I personally like the DLL mechanism for this and will make one if one isn't made by Parallax (they may decide to have me do it for them).
There will certainly be Spin on the Prop2, and I never had any doubt of that, even long before I was working with Parallax on this stuff. I think it's silly to even doubt that. If you've ever listened to Chip talk about the Prop2 (at one of the UPE*'s of the last couple years, or in some of the forum posts about Prop2), it's pretty clear he intends for there to be a new Spin interpreter for Prop2. It wouldn't make sense to have a new Spin interpreter for the Prop2 and not have tools to allow editing and downloading of that Spin goodness into the Prop2 now would it?
Keith
#1 and #2 are indeed correct. Ross, you are welcome to use my e-mail address below if you are not getting a Parallax reply on these forums.
#3 - Spin will also be part of Propeller 2, as is C [both with official support]. Other languages will also be available, I'm sure.
Ken Gracey
Shouldn't you be more concerned about whether or not Homespun will support Propeller 2 ?
Catalina may have to eject Homespun to keep flying.
I think Propellent will be different because it will also have to provide the SPIN interpreter, since it's no longer in ROM.
I really wonder how using Propellent with an encrypted program would work.
It looks like the Prop itself with it's 2k ROM will do all the encrypting and decrypting.
I wonder how you could then distribute an encrypted firmware update...
Jazzed (and everyone else at Parallax who reads these forums).
It seems to me that the only people to whom the answers are obvious, and for whom these questions may seem surprising are yourselves. Since you already have the answers, it is probably not obvious to you just how little official information actually "gets out" to those people who are not affiliated with Parallax in some way, and therefore have to rely on information in these forums - some of which is nothing more than vague hopes, wild guesses and unwarranted assumptions.
You want examples? A good case in point was the instruction set for the Prop 2. Lots of people asked about it, and got no answers. This went on for months - to the point where it became quite ridiculous. Then eventually Chip chimed in and said he had released it and had assumed someone had posted it to the forums months before. And even then what ended up being posted was pretty thin - certainly not enough detail for anyone to use for serious prospective Propeller 2 development work. We all know this information must exist somewhere by now, but as far as I know there have been no recent updates. Most of us have just given up hope of seeing it prior to the actual launch of the Propeller 2.
Another case would be the original "Parallax Micro C" proposal. I still don't know whatever happened to that one. I presume it has been dumped - but I don't know, and I got tired of raising it and getting no answers. Other people raised this as well, and Parallax never responded - at least as far as I know.
There are many other examples.
I realize Parallax do not monitor these forums with any regularity, and may sometimes not notice questions until they get repeated many times. Also, it is impossible for anyone (especially me, who doesn't have as much time to do this as I used to) to keep up with all the threads that are posted, so I accept that in some cases information may exist somewhere that I have missed.
That's why if I'm not certain of something, I ask. And I try in ask in contexts in which it makes sense to ask, since others may be interested in answer. But perhaps you would rather that potential Parallax customers just sat here in dumb silence and waited for official announcements that never seem to actually arrive?
As for Catalina, Homespun and the Prop 2, I have already been in contact with Michael Park on this, and he has given me the source to Homespun and also approval to modify it. All I'm waiting for is sufficient technical detail on the Propeller 2 (i.e. instruction set and proposed Spin language changes) to make sure that any changes I make to Homespun will be compatible with any changes Parallax makes to Spin. I don't want to end up having to support my own incompatible Spin compiler, or my own incompatible Spin VM.
On the other hand, I still have the option to revert to BST since Catalina can support that as well (I don't support it at the moment since I don't see the need to support two Spin compilers - but it is trivial to reactivate). But the current state of any discussions between Brad and Parallax concerning BST are yet another area of uncertainty.
But you should also keep in mind that Catalina originally also supported the Parallax Spin compiler - I dropped support for that one only because that particular compiler had so many limitations (e.g. sizes of symbol tables, number of characters in identifiers etc, etc). However, if Parallax does indeed plan to release an "improved" version of their Spin compiler for the Prop 2 which addresses these issues, then I could easily revert back to using that one and save myself some hassle.
One way or another, adding Propeller 2 support to Catalina is not really an issue, and I don't expect it to be a big job. But naturally I'm interested in all things that may affect my decisions as to the best way to go about it.
Ross.
Hi Ken,
Thanks. I generally assume it is better to discuss things in these forum than continually bother people who have better things to do - but I will keep your offer in mind in future
Ross.
All I got for that (and all I continue getting from you) is a middle finger. How am I supposed to react?
How could you possibly be of the opinion that Parallax would spend tons of effort on designing and supporting Spin/PASM for current Propeller, but not make it available on Propeller 2 ?
C'mon you guys. this public tiff has gone on long enough. I know about programmers' egos and reckon mine is just as sensitive to perceived slights as anyone else's. But we all have a common objective here: to advance the Propeller through useful and productive dev tools. While our methods may differ, our objectives are the same. So can it, will ya? Or take it outside, where other forumistas don't have to witness it. Sheesh!
Thanks,
-Phil
Don't take this so personally, Jazzed. It was not meant to be so. As I said before - I didn't know (and others also obviously didn't know) so I asked. What else would you expect?
There seems to be almost no information officially available about any of this stuff. If you take the time to look at the "Preliminary Feature List" for the Propeller 2, here is everything it says about language support:
- Propeller 2 Spin and Propeller 2 Assembly
- Propeller 2 Assembly is not fully backwards compatible with Propeller 1 Assembly
- Some Propeller 1 Spin code may need to be ported to the Propeller 2
Notice there is nothing about Propellent - which if you recall was the topic of this thread. In fact, it says more about what will NOT be supported, than what WILL be supported - i.e. most existing Propeller 1 programs. All we know from this official statement is that there will be something called "Propeller 2 Spin" - but it will not be the same as Propeller 1 Spin. We have no idea of what the language differences are, or how it will be compiled and loaded. It could be via Eclipse and GCC and satisfy that list.Ross.
Ross, we have some plans to provide a more formal update soon. The documents will be brought current and we will likely produce a short video explaining where we are with the effort.
Parallax Micro C is a dead proposal since we started PropGCC.
Ken Gracey
Jazzed,
Well, you could do as Phil suggests and not respond to posts not directed at you.
Ross.
Thanks Ken. I had assumed that was the case, but it's useful to get it confirmed.
Ross.
Sorry Ken, but I must say that it appears to be that the GCC group seem to have become an "elitist" group of insiders who are holding information close to the chest to ensure Ross and others are not fed with information that may help an opposition. This has been apparent to me in the last 12 months. This is not at all like Parallax to allow something like this to evolve. Sorry if my opinions hurt, but thats just how I see it. I am already on the outer with the GCC group anyway.
There's only two types of information I have not shared. One is specifics about the Prop2 that Chip shared with me under the assumption that I would not share it. I was working with him to implement/change some of the instructions at the time. The other is the x86 assembly code for the Spin/PASM compiler, again because Chip/Parallax asked me not to share it. I'm sorry if this comes off as elitist, but I know for certain it's not intended to be.
The issue with the prop 2 instruction information that I was sharing was that I had started doing it piece by piece when I was up visiting with Chip. Later Parallax ended up having Kye (I believe) take over since he was there locally and could get answers more easily being there. The document was released to the propgcc group. I believe it was just a misunderstanding/miscommunication that it wasn't released to the public at that time.
In any case, I am positive that the information was not (and is not) being withheld for any malicious reasons like you suggest. Honestly, there hasn't been any new Prop2 information released to the propgcc group since that instruction set doc that we have all seen. The propgcc group is busy working towards beta of the Prop1 set of tools.
Roy
Hi Roy,
I don't think Cluso is accusing you of not sharing information (and I certainly wasn't!). I also understand that information given in confidence must be respected and not shared. However, it is also clear that for some reason Parallax has changed over the last year or so from being open and inclusive to being much more defensive and exclusive.
There could of course be lots of reasons for this - the one I hope is true is that they are all so darn busy getting the Propeller 2 out that they simply don't have time to read the forums much these days, and are therefore unaware of the degree of frustration many of us feel.
It doesn't hurt to occasionally point out that Parallax may be - all unwittingly - losing a few of their long time fans and supporters along the way. In fact there are more than just a few that have expressed opinions similar to Cluso's - but at least some of them have already given up and are quite noticeably absent from the forums these days.
Ross.
Does this mean that Prop II will be able to run DOS and Windows programs?
No the x86 asembly code I am talking about there is the code Chip wrote that compiles Spin/PASM code. It runs on a PC as part of the PropTool.
RossH,
I do know that the parallax folks are very busy, and that responses from them are sometimes delayed. I just don't understand how you can say Parallax is being more defensive and elusive? Chip has talked freely about the inner workings of the Prop 2 at several of the recent UPE's. They share their designs and plans all the time. Perhaps you guys are expecting too much?
This way there won't be any competition and friction.
I believe he was invited to join, but declined.
We have been through this before. I was invited to be part of the GCC team as an alpha tester - a request which I had to turn down (for various reasons which are not relevant here). I wondered at the time whether this may have been a mistake, but now I can see it was the right decision - I see now that I wouldn't have agreed with several of the subsequent decisions made by the GCC team, and now I am quite content that there will instead be several alternative C offerings on the Propeller.
None of this is really relevant to the subject at hand - which is that I am just happy that Roy at least sees the importance of providing tools familiar to existing Propeller 1 users when the Propeller 2 is launched. Why others can't see the same is completely beyond me.
Ross.
Perhaps we are. Many of us felt that we were actually helping Parallax in some way, and it came as a bit of a shock to find out how little our views and efforts were understood and/or appreciated. But (as I have said elsewhere) those of us who have learned to distingush between Parallax the chip design company from Parallax the software company are generally willing to persevere - because we love the Propeller architecture. You tend not to hear much from those of us who couldn't see the distinction - many of them have simply left the forums.
Ross.
The emphasis was added by me! Simply inviting Ross (after the horse had bolted) to join the alpha testing was a jaw breaker IMHO. What an insult!
Parallax has certainly changed over the past year, and IMHO not for the better. We have some really great things done (for free) by some people such as Ross, Michael, Brad, etc. They all seem to have been ingored when it came to redoing what they had created. Is Parallax is becoming a Microsoft??? (remember how Microsoft killed Netscape).
I am beginning to wonder if publishing my work is worthwhile any more. I thought I was giving back to the community.
I think you need to step back and look at all the data. It's clear to me you are coming at this without all the information.