What "Gold Standard" meant to me.....
mindrobots
Posts: 6,506
My understanding of what the "Gold Standard" collection was to be seems to be different than a lot of folks.
Back when Parallax Semiconductor launched to address "professional engineer" needs, the Gold Standard objects were one of the special features being promoted. I saw these as a way to offer standard, tested objects to address the soft peripheral needs (a BIG feature of the Propeller) of professional engineers looking to use the Propeller in a project instead of chip X or chip Y which has a certain set of hard peripherals. Through volunteers, commissions, conscripts or indentured coders, these objects would be written and then vetted and "goldified" by a select group of FEs and trusted consultants. This collection then would give the Parallax FEs a common, easily supportable base of code to offer solutions to professional engineers. The selection of objects to be provided I believed was to be driven by Parallax (probably the Propeller Product Manager?) and finally stamped GOLD by them after the vetting process. The user community would have some input thorough identifying popular objects and writing objects to submit based on the Parallax list of wants and needs.
These standards were negotiated, written, ratified and published by the chosen committe a while back for Spin/PASM objects. Once documented, I assumed Parallax would identify a number of objects they considered needed in the Gold Standard collection, which they did. These objects would then recoded or cleaned up as required to fit the standard and run through the relatively simple "goldification" process above. App notes would be provided as part of the object where appropriate.
At that point, Parallax stepped up with a list of objects to be brought up to the docuemnted standard and solicited volunteers who would be compensated for their efforts with store credits. I don't think many of these objects were jumped on by volunteers. This was understandable since many of us have multiple projects of our own and a smaller group are often distracted from their course by shiny new things. This really only leaves commissioned consultants or internal resources to code the Golden Objects.
Now, if we fast forward several months, we're at today. There are few "Golden" objects published for the Propeller. The original need of Parallax Semiconductor to establish a Golden Library has at least doubled with the nearing release of the Propeller 2. The stakes are higher for the Propeller 2 in my opinion. It is going to be a powerful chip that should have a complete or at near beta level library of Gold Standard soft peripheral objects waiting for it when it is delivered. Again, this needs to be owned and driven by Parallax as part of the P2 release preparation. There is hardware emulation for what amounts to 75% of a P2, the tools are rather rapidly being developed for the P2 and Gold Standard library is still facing major issues.
We can help as a community but I don't think we can define the contents of the Gold Standard library nor can we drive the process to create it. What we see as a Gold Standard may be very different than what Parallax anticipates the real would needs to be when engineer inquiry come rolling in.
I think the type and quality of the soft peripherals and other example and demo code available when the P2 actually launches (as well as the development tools) will strongly dictate the tone and direction for the future of the propeller 2.
At least that's what I thought..........
Back when Parallax Semiconductor launched to address "professional engineer" needs, the Gold Standard objects were one of the special features being promoted. I saw these as a way to offer standard, tested objects to address the soft peripheral needs (a BIG feature of the Propeller) of professional engineers looking to use the Propeller in a project instead of chip X or chip Y which has a certain set of hard peripherals. Through volunteers, commissions, conscripts or indentured coders, these objects would be written and then vetted and "goldified" by a select group of FEs and trusted consultants. This collection then would give the Parallax FEs a common, easily supportable base of code to offer solutions to professional engineers. The selection of objects to be provided I believed was to be driven by Parallax (probably the Propeller Product Manager?) and finally stamped GOLD by them after the vetting process. The user community would have some input thorough identifying popular objects and writing objects to submit based on the Parallax list of wants and needs.
These standards were negotiated, written, ratified and published by the chosen committe a while back for Spin/PASM objects. Once documented, I assumed Parallax would identify a number of objects they considered needed in the Gold Standard collection, which they did. These objects would then recoded or cleaned up as required to fit the standard and run through the relatively simple "goldification" process above. App notes would be provided as part of the object where appropriate.
At that point, Parallax stepped up with a list of objects to be brought up to the docuemnted standard and solicited volunteers who would be compensated for their efforts with store credits. I don't think many of these objects were jumped on by volunteers. This was understandable since many of us have multiple projects of our own and a smaller group are often distracted from their course by shiny new things. This really only leaves commissioned consultants or internal resources to code the Golden Objects.
Now, if we fast forward several months, we're at today. There are few "Golden" objects published for the Propeller. The original need of Parallax Semiconductor to establish a Golden Library has at least doubled with the nearing release of the Propeller 2. The stakes are higher for the Propeller 2 in my opinion. It is going to be a powerful chip that should have a complete or at near beta level library of Gold Standard soft peripheral objects waiting for it when it is delivered. Again, this needs to be owned and driven by Parallax as part of the P2 release preparation. There is hardware emulation for what amounts to 75% of a P2, the tools are rather rapidly being developed for the P2 and Gold Standard library is still facing major issues.
We can help as a community but I don't think we can define the contents of the Gold Standard library nor can we drive the process to create it. What we see as a Gold Standard may be very different than what Parallax anticipates the real would needs to be when engineer inquiry come rolling in.
I think the type and quality of the soft peripherals and other example and demo code available when the P2 actually launches (as well as the development tools) will strongly dictate the tone and direction for the future of the propeller 2.
At least that's what I thought..........
Comments
However, if it gets traction, perhaps Parallax might like it. I don't know.