Engineers try to cram Pythons into MCUs

Source: The content comes from " Yuezhi.com ", author: Julianne Pepitone, thank you.

This developer is stuffing Python into microcontrollers

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Python is one of the most popular programming languages ​​at the moment . It is known for its large library of utility programs and, as a dynamic programming language, Python programs can be debugged faster than those that must be compiled before execution. Companies such as Instagram, Google, Spotify, and YouTube use Python.

While Python continues to dominate the desktop and cloud, the MicroPython and CircuitPython camps are developing interpreted versions of the language for hardware-centric embedded projects, such as small products based on microcontrollers. Traditionally, the strict computational constraints of embedded hardware favor compiled languages, but more powerful microcontrollers are changing this situation.

Scott Shawcroft of open-source hardware company Adefreet Industries led the development of CircuitPython. Adefreet CEO Limor Fried is a member of the editorial advisory board of the journal, but she was not involved in the writing of this article.

“[Adefrit Industries’] target audience is people who have never programmed before,” Shawcroft said, explaining that CircuitPython makes it easier to run simple projects. “I like people to jump right in.”

Shawcroft said he became interested in programming as a teenager and was "the first generation to get into programming through the Web." While studying for a computer engineering degree, Shawcroft interned at Creative Commons and Google. In 2009, he joined the Google Maps team and worked there for six years. He left Google in 2015 to start a drone flight controller company. "We did a small production run in 2016 and about 10 people bought our product," Shawcroft said with a smile.

Shawcroft caught the attention of Phillip Torrone, creative director of Adefrite Industries, during an appearance on the weekly live-stream series Show and Tell, a reality show where people share their personal projects. “I said at the end of the show, ‘I need a job!’ ” Shawcroft said.

Torrone approached Shawcroft with the idea of ​​porting the then-two-year-old MicroPython—a stripped-down version of Python developed by physicist Damien George—to a special microcontroller.

"I hadn't heard of MicroPython, but the idea of ​​putting Python on hardware immediately appealed to me," Shawcroft said. "Limo said it would take about three weeks to complete, but it took me half that time because I couldn't stop after I started."

Adefrit Industries agreed to give Shawcroft a full-time job developing MicroPython, so George, the creator of MicroPython, began receiving a lot of code submissions from Adefrit Industries, and George "was a little concerned about our involvement and changes," Shawcroft said.

While discussing technical aspects with George, Adefrit Industries realized that they had a different vision for the future of the language than George did. They did not agree with the trade-off between performance and ease of use for MicroPython, and Shawcroft wanted to focus on Python libraries, hoping that MicroPython could become an alternative to the compiled software ecosystem centered around the Arduino microcontroller series.

“George was an advocate for the C-core users, and he was convinced that Python could be fast,” Shawcroft explains, “but they were not the user group that Adefrit Industries was targeting at all.” So Adefrit Industries decided to start over, and CircuitPython was officially launched in mid-2017.

The CircuitPython community has been growing steadily since its inception. The biggest challenge in Shawcroft's job is to manage this thriving community. "As an open source maintainer, if someone asks you to implement this function or complete that effect, and the attitude and method are very impolite and self-righteous, what should you do?" Shawcroft said.

A formal set of rules would help. “That’s an important line in the sand for all modern civilian open source projects, and you have to defend that line,” Shawcroft said. “Ours has worked.”

Shawcroft said that for those interested in contributing to CircuitPython, the key is practice. "Write a lot of code and get involved as much as possible in communities like the one that Adefrite Industries has created," he said. "I used to say you have to love it, but that's not really fair, because if you love the language, you'll naturally want to practice it."