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From: Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
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Subject: Re: New IEEE Language Popularity Ratings
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:04:25 -0700
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"G.B." <bauhaus@futureapps.invalid> writes:
>> level realtime stuff in the devices too (RF protocols etc)
> Still the low level stuff's structure and dynamics had better be
> understood by the glue coders building it into this electric kettle?

If you mean the RF stuff, no they don't need any clue about it.  I don't
have much clue about it myself.  I'm making an internet teakettle and
I'm suppposed to understand Viterbi encoding or whatever the radio uses?
I've probably never even heard of it.  It's just a peripheral that bits
go into and come out of, that looks to the software like a network
adapter.

If you mean something like a temperature control PID, then maybe I have
to understand what PID is, but again there's not much issue of realtime.
I can write it in Python and it there's a few msec of GC pause now and
then, it won't affect the kettle temperature detectably at all.  

> I'm reminded of The Market's effect on clean Diesel in non-vans: can
> we use a single core 16 bit µController, not a quad-core ARM, please?

Do they even design new 16-bit stuff any more?  There's cheap 8-bit
stuff and powerful 32-bit stuff, and then the MSP430 is dying on the
vine.

The typical IOT gizmo has an ESP8266, which is comparable to a Cortex M3
without the ARM royalties (different instruction set inspired by MIPS).
It runs at 80 mhz and has 128k or so of on-chip ram and there's usually
a megabyte or so of SPI flash on the module.  The wi-fi RF stuff is on
the chip too so there's a few tiny analog parts and a PCB trace antenna
on the board, besides the 8266 itself.

Type ESP8266 into ebay to see how ridicuously cheap this stuff is
(around 3 dollars in hobbyist quantity).  Quite a powerful 32-bit cpu
that can run Micropython (micropython.org), Lua (NodeMCU.com), or
Javascript (espruino.com) nicely.  It's nothing like a quad core ARM.
Although with the Raspberry Pi Zero at $5 retail, maybe that's coming.

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oym7B7YidKs

Nice!  That's the best one of those I've seen so far.