What is the official name for the Propeller-2? Given the advance nature of the chip since the basic stamp and propeller-1, have you considered the terms Jet or Turbo-Prop?
At the very least, you should take a few years off when everything is in production and the software tools are written and documented. Don't even think about whether you'd want to do it again. At the end of your hiatus, you'll know.
Somehow I fell in love with the propeller because of @Chips way of thinking. It sort of resonates with me.
The P2 is the next incarnation, and I am sure it will be nice, but even if unjust for commercial, high volume customers, I share the vision of @Chip about self hosting and breaking out of that faster and faster revision cycle of everything we need to just do our work.
P2 may do it, it is close.
But we all get older, and @Chip may do another one, but - hmm - P1 around 6 years(?) P2 around 12 years(?), sorry @Chip but I am not sure if I ever will see a P3, like Saphiea I will vanish.
And that is why I still would like to get the monitor in the rom. Has to be this time, not next version.
And that is why I still would like to get the monitor in the rom. Has to be this time, not next version.
I think Chip is planning to revive at least some of what was in Prop2-Hot command line.
As for speed of release of later editions of the Prop2, it will never be stuck like the Prop1 was. The first Prop2 is aimed at education and will be the one true way so to speak. No confusion or compatibility issues.
The dictating factors for multiple variations of the Prop2 are simply cost and suitable markets. If we can make a new market for the Prop2 then I'm sure Parallax will help where they can.
It was tongue in cheek, I should have tacked a smily in there - Phil listed software tools, Windoze is such a moving target these days, Proptool has its critics ...
No time should be wasted developing M$ only solutions. All tools should be cross-platform. We already have OpenSpin, SimpleIDE, PropellerIDE and others for that.
M$ itself has shown how to do it with it's own, wonderful, Visual Studio Code editor/IDE.
Oddly enough, the programs that are working least well on this Surface Pro 4 with Win 10 are legacy Windows only applications. Pretty much everything else I have in here is an open source and cross platform application and they work very well.
No time should be wasted developing M$ only solutions. All tools should be cross-platform. We already have OpenSpin, SimpleIDE, PropellerIDE and others for that.
M$ itself has shown how to do it with it's own, wonderful, Visual Studio Code editor/IDE.
Oddly enough, the programs that are working least well on this Surface Pro 4 with Win 10 are legacy Windows only applications. Pretty much everything else I have in here is an open source and cross platform application and they work very well.
I tend to agree. Supporting M$ tends to be cumbersome, if not costly. In my last project, I've designed the software that supports my homemade function generator for Debian Linux, complete with a neat GUI and all. It can be easily exported and adapted for other Linux systems as well as for Mac. As for Windows, I quit, as it requires different source codes and drivers for the different versions.
To be clear, I was not suggesting one should not support Windows.
Windows users need all the help they can get
Tool kits like Qt can get you a long way to cross-platform support from a single code base. Now a days we have Electron as a platform, exploited very well by M$ to get their Visual Studio Code running everywhere.
Of course the devil is in the details, cross platform support seems to never come with out effort and cost. Especially if you need to get down to drivers and OS specific things.
sadly all this cross-platform stuff seems to exclude windows.
I know @heater, you advocate for it all the time, but most of the stuff claiming to be cross-platform is Linux-platform, windows excluded.
And - hmm - but in all my professional life (about 15 years construction/truck driving and around 30 years of programming (times overlap) I never ever found even ONE company or customer using Linux in his office or workplace.
Might be nice for server, might be nice for programmer, but NO and with no I mean NONE company I have as customer or worked for has Linux. It is Windows everywhere. If it is my car mechanic, my doctor, the restaurant I go to, the lawyers office I need to visit, hundreds of construction companies I work with on a daily basis, NOBODY is using Linux.
NOBODY.
And this are the people who BUY software, not just use it for free. And me as a programmer wants to get PAID every month, I am doing this to feed me and my dog.
Sure, I do like Richard Stallman and the idea that software could be FREE and I have also other funny Ideas how the world could be better and such.
But if you make you living as a programmer, and that of the company you work for, open source and giving things away for free simply does not pay your bills.
And like I mentioned before the pendulum seems to swing backwards, cross-platform simple ide seems NOT to work on windows anymore, all the goodies from David and Eric are Linux centered.
I even meet more old mainframes as Linux desktops.
Its like with them car magazines testing the tesla roadster or the next new Porsche whatever for $250.000++
I never ever met anybody owning one. Maybe I know the wrong people.
Does Javascript support access to disk drives, USB ports, and the like, yet? Or is it still confined to its safe sandbox? If the former, it's rich enough to support an IDE, file load/save, uploader, etc.; and the user interface could be browser-centric.
OTOH, if a local server is required, the cross-platform stuff gets a tad more complicated. And forget the "cloud." That's a non-starter for serious development.
One of the tenets of cross-platform philosophy is source level compatibility rather than pre-compiled binaries. This doesn't lend itself to quick start very well at all. And of course is not what has been common on Windoze ecosystem.
Maybe M$'s push with packaging Ubuntu-in-a-VM is a means to make this easier.
That is exactly what it is. Also, the win kernel has been picking up features, one by one.
UNIX will actually win the day, and Windows will simply become UNIX enough for the whole thing to not be such a bother.
I'm watching for one feature:
Run a program and then delete the executable image off disk. Program should continue running as it's data remains visible, cached.
Linux now does this. IRIX had it way back, to a point where I once upgraded my training machines to a new version. While teaching I noticed a bit of slow behavior, and THE OLD VERSION.
A few machines were running it.
When I closed the last one, file cache dropped by about a gig, and all was well.
Let's just say the students were stunned. I put a graphical system display on the screen, then had them close out their sessions.
It was app server model, one big compute node, 6 display nodes.
Win is getting there, grudgingly, one piece at a time...
I do run into Linux. Developers, Internet people of various types, job shops looking for cheap to deploy paperless systems, etc.
For me, at present, win is fine, though on this new gig, I can use Linux! I will too.
sadly all this cross-platform stuff seems to exclude windows. ... I know @heater, you advocate for it all the time, but most of the stuff claiming to be cross-platform is Linux-platform, windows excluded.
With all due respect this is simply not true.
As you may be aware I'm using Windows 10 pretty much full time at the moment. It's my one year trial period to see what goes on in that world. I have been amazed to find how much of the software I use day to day on Linux also runs perfectly well on Windows. Most of it runs fine on Mac too. Here's a list, I think you will have heard of many of the items:
Atom - Editor / IDE
Espruino - Javascript IDE for MCU
Etcher - SD card image writer
GIMP - Image Editor
git - Source code version control
gnuplot - Graph plotting
Google Chrome - WEB browser
Icarus Verilog - Verilog compiler / simulator
Inskscape - Vector graphics editor
IntelliJ - Editor / IDE
Java - Java language run time
KiCad - Electronic schematic capture and PCB layout
Lazarus - Free Pascal IDE
Libre Office - Word processor, spread sheet, etc.
Clang/LLVM - C compiler
.Net Framework - Develop high performance applications in less time, on any platform. By Microsoft.
Visual Stucio Code - Editor / IDE by Microsoft.
Mosquitto - MQTT broker
Firefox - Web browser
Node.js - Javascript run time (Microsoft)
Virtual Box - Virtualization.
PropellerIDE - Propeller IDE
Python - language
Qt - Cross platform graphical application toolkit and IDE
Quartus - FPGA development system
SimpleIDE - Propeller IDE
OpenSpin - Spin language compiler
Android Studio - Mobile OS development
...but in all my professional life (about 15 years construction/truck driving and around 30 years of programming (times overlap) I never ever found even ONE company or customer using Linux in his office or workplace. Might be nice for server, might be nice for programmer, but NO and with no I mean NONE company I have as customer or worked for has Linux. It is Windows everywhere. If it is my car mechanic, my doctor, the restaurant I go to, the lawyers office I need to visit, hundreds of construction companies I work with on a daily basis, NOBODY is using Linux....NOBODY...And this are the people who BUY software, not just use it for free.
Perhaps so. I'm not sure that is a valid reason for wanting to keep the software industry in the 1980's forever and all the worlds computer users dependent on a single company in a foreign country.
And me as a programmer wants to get PAID every month, I am doing this to feed me and my dog.
I have never said one should not expect to be paid for writing software. I think you will find that the majority of the cross-platform code I list above is written by people who are paid to do it. Much of it is created by profit making organizations. I hear that Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Altera (Intel), Github, JetBrains, Apple manage to scrape a living for example.
But this is irrelevant here anyway. Parallax supplies it's development tools at zero cost to customers anyway. Cross platform or otherwise. Open Source or otherwise.
Sure, I do like Richard Stallman and the idea that software could be FREE and I have also other funny Ideas how the world could be better and such.
Excellent.
But if you make you living as a programmer, and that of the company you work for, open source and giving things away for free simply does not pay your bills.
Not true. See above.
And like I mentioned before the pendulum seems to swing backwards, cross-platform simple ide seems NOT to work on windows anymore, all the goodies from David and Eric are Linux centered.
Not true. See above.
I even meet more old mainframes as Linux desktops.
What a strange world you live in. Very interesting I'm sure but not typical.
Its like with them car magazines testing the tesla roadster or the next new Porsche whatever for $250.000++
No it's nothing like that.
Maybe I know the wrong people.
Well, you know me! Around here all the cool young developers use Mac. If they are not using Linux. Cross platform support is much appreciated.
Does Javascript support access to disk drives, USB ports, and the like, yet?
Javascript is a programming language. As such it neither supports nor not-supports all of those things. That is an issue of the run time environment JS is used in.
As it happens JS had support, if you want to put it that way, for the usual files, ports and OS facilities from the beginning. Netscape intended JS as a server side language as well.
If the former, it's rich enough to support an IDE, file load/save, uploader, etc.; and the user interface could be browser-centric.
Since some years now there have been run times for JS that do exactly what you are talking about. The most notable of these is Electron. https://electron.atom.io/
Electron was created by Github as the basis for thier Atom editor / IDE. https://atom.io/
Electron works so well that Microsoft adopted it to to build their cross-platform Visual Studio Code IDE on https://code.visualstudio.com/.
Even Microsoft proudly proclaims "Free. Open source. Runs everywhere." on the VS Code page!
One of the tenets of cross-platform philosophy is source level compatibility rather than pre-compiled binaries. This doesn't lend itself to quick start very well at all. And of course is not what has been common on Windoze ecosystem.
I'm not sure I follow you.
Cross-platform support is not a philosophy or religion. It has no tenets or rules.
Certainly "Cross-platform" is the term used to describe the ability to use a program on many platforms. The implication is that the program is built from the same source code base. Else what's the point?
"Cross-platform" does not say anything about how programs are delivered to users, as pre-compiled binaries or source code. Or perhaps byte codes or whatever.
This doesn't lend itself to quick start very well at all.
As it happens, all the cross-platform applications I listed above were obtained as pre-compiled binaries and installed with an installer just like any usual Windows software. That is to say, the same "quick start" that any Windows user is used to.
Maybe M$'s push with packaging Ubuntu-in-a-VM is a means to make this easier.
The Linux Subsystem For Windows is great. It has allowed me to a lot of work on Windows that would otherwise be impossible.
Heater,
msrobot is viewing this from the Prop dev tools mainly I think. That's certainly how I took it. The original Parallax "Proptool" doesn't work on Win10 if I understood the situation, not that I know, and there is many issues just making the alternatives work there as well.
I guess it's really a complaint about Windoze no longer being as backward compatible as people had historically come to expect.
msrobots - *all* my customers, with very few exeptions, use Linux. They're all over the world. Next month I'll visit a large entity where they use Unix and Linux everywhere. And Windows, for some stuff.
msrobot is viewing this from the Prop dev tools mainly I think. That's certainly how I took it.
I don't see how you can read that into msrobots lengthy comment.
I can only read what msrobots has written there. It only lists some arguments as to why Parallax might not want to bother with creating cross-platform tools. Specifically non-Windows tools. Only problem is all the arguments presented are false.
Along the way he launches an attack mixes an attack on Linux Free and Open Source software. Neither of these are directly related to the proposal for cross-platform support. And again the arguments presented are based on false premises.
Now, I can offer reasons why Parallax, or anyone else, might not want support cross-platform development. Simply it's more effort and hence expense to develop. It requires a bit more documentation. It requires more testing.
I believe that with modern tool kits like Qt and Electron the extra effort required to develop and document is minimal. We have enough people here using various platforms that the extra testing effort can easily be distributed to eager volunteers.
I also believe that Open Source development makes cross-platform support easier due to the possibility of involving the Propeller community.
The Prop Tool runs fine on my Win 10 Surface Pro 4.
I only have three other Windows only applications installed here.
One of them, LtSpice, works brilliantly.
Two of them, both configuration tools for various devices, are almost unusable. They don't like the high res screen of the Surface. No matter what I do with scaling and such.
Conclusions:
Given that all the cross-platform tools I list above work so well and 50% of my Windows only applications do not. I conclude that cross-platform solutions are superior.
Clearly cross-platform solutions insure against the OS vendor pulling the rug out from under you.
potatohead - Linux always had that (delete an executable file and running processes continue running). That's simply an effect of the Unix filesystem that even the first native Linux filesystem (ext, before ext2) had, and I believe Minix also had: That a file is only deleted when the open count goes to zero. Until then it is only deleted from the directory. (No caching actually needed)
Comments
-Phil
(but worth the wait)...
The 'last propeller'? I wonder.
At the very least, you should take a few years off when everything is in production and the software tools are written and documented. Don't even think about whether you'd want to do it again. At the end of your hiatus, you'll know.
-Phil
Somehow I fell in love with the propeller because of @Chips way of thinking. It sort of resonates with me.
The P2 is the next incarnation, and I am sure it will be nice, but even if unjust for commercial, high volume customers, I share the vision of @Chip about self hosting and breaking out of that faster and faster revision cycle of everything we need to just do our work.
P2 may do it, it is close.
But we all get older, and @Chip may do another one, but - hmm - P1 around 6 years(?) P2 around 12 years(?), sorry @Chip but I am not sure if I ever will see a P3, like Saphiea I will vanish.
And that is why I still would like to get the monitor in the rom. Has to be this time, not next version.
please.
Mike.
As for speed of release of later editions of the Prop2, it will never be stuck like the Prop1 was. The first Prop2 is aimed at education and will be the one true way so to speak. No confusion or compatibility issues.
The dictating factors for multiple variations of the Prop2 are simply cost and suitable markets. If we can make a new market for the Prop2 then I'm sure Parallax will help where they can.
No time should be wasted developing M$ only solutions. All tools should be cross-platform. We already have OpenSpin, SimpleIDE, PropellerIDE and others for that.
M$ itself has shown how to do it with it's own, wonderful, Visual Studio Code editor/IDE.
Oddly enough, the programs that are working least well on this Surface Pro 4 with Win 10 are legacy Windows only applications. Pretty much everything else I have in here is an open source and cross platform application and they work very well.
I'm guessing that would require extra investment from Parallax though. So I thinking it hasn't been considered because it's all still in Chip's hands.
Windows users need all the help they can get
Tool kits like Qt can get you a long way to cross-platform support from a single code base. Now a days we have Electron as a platform, exploited very well by M$ to get their Visual Studio Code running everywhere.
Of course the devil is in the details, cross platform support seems to never come with out effort and cost. Especially if you need to get down to drivers and OS specific things.
I know @heater, you advocate for it all the time, but most of the stuff claiming to be cross-platform is Linux-platform, windows excluded.
And - hmm - but in all my professional life (about 15 years construction/truck driving and around 30 years of programming (times overlap) I never ever found even ONE company or customer using Linux in his office or workplace.
Might be nice for server, might be nice for programmer, but NO and with no I mean NONE company I have as customer or worked for has Linux. It is Windows everywhere. If it is my car mechanic, my doctor, the restaurant I go to, the lawyers office I need to visit, hundreds of construction companies I work with on a daily basis, NOBODY is using Linux.
NOBODY.
And this are the people who BUY software, not just use it for free. And me as a programmer wants to get PAID every month, I am doing this to feed me and my dog.
Sure, I do like Richard Stallman and the idea that software could be FREE and I have also other funny Ideas how the world could be better and such.
But if you make you living as a programmer, and that of the company you work for, open source and giving things away for free simply does not pay your bills.
And like I mentioned before the pendulum seems to swing backwards, cross-platform simple ide seems NOT to work on windows anymore, all the goodies from David and Eric are Linux centered.
I even meet more old mainframes as Linux desktops.
Its like with them car magazines testing the tesla roadster or the next new Porsche whatever for $250.000++
I never ever met anybody owning one. Maybe I know the wrong people.
Mike
OTOH, if a local server is required, the cross-platform stuff gets a tad more complicated. And forget the "cloud." That's a non-starter for serious development.
-Phil
Maybe M$'s push with packaging Ubuntu-in-a-VM is a means to make this easier.
EDIT: typo
UNIX will actually win the day, and Windows will simply become UNIX enough for the whole thing to not be such a bother.
I'm watching for one feature:
Run a program and then delete the executable image off disk. Program should continue running as it's data remains visible, cached.
Linux now does this. IRIX had it way back, to a point where I once upgraded my training machines to a new version. While teaching I noticed a bit of slow behavior, and THE OLD VERSION.
A few machines were running it.
When I closed the last one, file cache dropped by about a gig, and all was well.
Let's just say the students were stunned. I put a graphical system display on the screen, then had them close out their sessions.
It was app server model, one big compute node, 6 display nodes.
Win is getting there, grudgingly, one piece at a time...
I do run into Linux. Developers, Internet people of various types, job shops looking for cheap to deploy paperless systems, etc.
For me, at present, win is fine, though on this new gig, I can use Linux! I will too.
As you may be aware I'm using Windows 10 pretty much full time at the moment. It's my one year trial period to see what goes on in that world. I have been amazed to find how much of the software I use day to day on Linux also runs perfectly well on Windows. Most of it runs fine on Mac too. Here's a list, I think you will have heard of many of the items:
Atom - Editor / IDE
Espruino - Javascript IDE for MCU
Etcher - SD card image writer
GIMP - Image Editor
git - Source code version control
gnuplot - Graph plotting
Google Chrome - WEB browser
Icarus Verilog - Verilog compiler / simulator
Inskscape - Vector graphics editor
IntelliJ - Editor / IDE
Java - Java language run time
KiCad - Electronic schematic capture and PCB layout
Lazarus - Free Pascal IDE
Libre Office - Word processor, spread sheet, etc.
Clang/LLVM - C compiler
.Net Framework - Develop high performance applications in less time, on any platform. By Microsoft.
Visual Stucio Code - Editor / IDE by Microsoft.
Mosquitto - MQTT broker
Firefox - Web browser
Node.js - Javascript run time (Microsoft)
Virtual Box - Virtualization.
PropellerIDE - Propeller IDE
Python - language
Qt - Cross platform graphical application toolkit and IDE
Quartus - FPGA development system
SimpleIDE - Propeller IDE
OpenSpin - Spin language compiler
Android Studio - Mobile OS development
Perhaps so. I'm not sure that is a valid reason for wanting to keep the software industry in the 1980's forever and all the worlds computer users dependent on a single company in a foreign country. I have never said one should not expect to be paid for writing software. I think you will find that the majority of the cross-platform code I list above is written by people who are paid to do it. Much of it is created by profit making organizations. I hear that Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Altera (Intel), Github, JetBrains, Apple manage to scrape a living for example.
But this is irrelevant here anyway. Parallax supplies it's development tools at zero cost to customers anyway. Cross platform or otherwise. Open Source or otherwise. Excellent. Not true. See above. Not true. See above. What a strange world you live in. Very interesting I'm sure but not typical. No it's nothing like that. Well, you know me! Around here all the cool young developers use Mac. If they are not using Linux. Cross platform support is much appreciated.
As it happens JS had support, if you want to put it that way, for the usual files, ports and OS facilities from the beginning. Netscape intended JS as a server side language as well. Since some years now there have been run times for JS that do exactly what you are talking about. The most notable of these is Electron. https://electron.atom.io/
Electron was created by Github as the basis for thier Atom editor / IDE. https://atom.io/
Electron works so well that Microsoft adopted it to to build their cross-platform Visual Studio Code IDE on https://code.visualstudio.com/.
Even Microsoft proudly proclaims "Free. Open source. Runs everywhere." on the VS Code page!
Cross-platform support is not a philosophy or religion. It has no tenets or rules.
Certainly "Cross-platform" is the term used to describe the ability to use a program on many platforms. The implication is that the program is built from the same source code base. Else what's the point?
"Cross-platform" does not say anything about how programs are delivered to users, as pre-compiled binaries or source code. Or perhaps byte codes or whatever. As it happens, all the cross-platform applications I listed above were obtained as pre-compiled binaries and installed with an installer just like any usual Windows software. That is to say, the same "quick start" that any Windows user is used to. The Linux Subsystem For Windows is great. It has allowed me to a lot of work on Windows that would otherwise be impossible.
Just now it's command line only though.
msrobot is viewing this from the Prop dev tools mainly I think. That's certainly how I took it. The original Parallax "Proptool" doesn't work on Win10 if I understood the situation, not that I know, and there is many issues just making the alternatives work there as well.
I guess it's really a complaint about Windoze no longer being as backward compatible as people had historically come to expect.
On mobile, don't want to do the work to quote Heater.
You should be able to run an X server and get graphics on those apps supporting it.
Just export display to your win IP address and open windows firewall.
There are free ones. Xwin32 is one.
I can only read what msrobots has written there. It only lists some arguments as to why Parallax might not want to bother with creating cross-platform tools. Specifically non-Windows tools. Only problem is all the arguments presented are false.
Along the way he launches an attack mixes an attack on Linux Free and Open Source software. Neither of these are directly related to the proposal for cross-platform support. And again the arguments presented are based on false premises.
Now, I can offer reasons why Parallax, or anyone else, might not want support cross-platform development. Simply it's more effort and hence expense to develop. It requires a bit more documentation. It requires more testing.
I believe that with modern tool kits like Qt and Electron the extra effort required to develop and document is minimal. We have enough people here using various platforms that the extra testing effort can easily be distributed to eager volunteers.
I also believe that Open Source development makes cross-platform support easier due to the possibility of involving the Propeller community.
The Prop Tool runs fine on my Win 10 Surface Pro 4.
I only have three other Windows only applications installed here.
One of them, LtSpice, works brilliantly.
Two of them, both configuration tools for various devices, are almost unusable. They don't like the high res screen of the Surface. No matter what I do with scaling and such.
Conclusions:
Given that all the cross-platform tools I list above work so well and 50% of my Windows only applications do not. I conclude that cross-platform solutions are superior.
Clearly cross-platform solutions insure against the OS vendor pulling the rug out from under you.