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Comment by noobiemcfoob | Hacker News Reader

> What is used in embedded makes sense for embedded only

Certainly, with that attitude. Personally, I fight that mentality when I can. The reason to lean on technology that is used in multiple disciplines is to increase the pool of viable programmers. If it's the wrong tool, then it's the wrong tool. But otherwise use the tool that the most can use.

On porting libraries...well, the WebSockets client I play with is only 60 lines. So, I don't know, you tell me: https://github.com/danni/uwebsockets/blob/esp8266/uwebsocket...

And yeah, that's micropython (because I love inviting the wrath of embedded developers). But that will run on your ESP8266 just fine. I use the D1 mini :)

You're definitely right on having to implement more of the pub/sub on your WebSockets server. I misspoke in saying WebSockets gives you those qualities.

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> Certainly, with that attitude. Personally, I fight that mentality when I can. The reason to lean on technology that is used in multiple disciplines is to increase the pool of viable programmers. If it's the wrong tool, then it's the wrong tool. But otherwise use the tool that the most can use.

Which is my point, the right tool in that case is one that fit on the memory footprint of an embedded microcontroler.

> On porting libraries...well, the WebSockets client I play with is only 60 lines.

Theses 60 lines does almost nothing. You ignore the 240 lines inside protocol.py just beside. You also ignore the 600 KB binary required for MicroPython. Already you simply CAN'T run on an ESP8266 that's only embedded with 512 KB (so can't be run on any of my ESP-01 module).

That does make me think though that the Websocket protocol is quite simpler than I though, but if I were to use it, I would plainly do a socket connection instead which would be even more simple.

> I use the D1 mini :)

Sure with one big enough, but we are talking about embedded, where resources are scarce. Running Micropython is a luxury for many embedded developers.

Yeah, I did miss the import from protocol.py. I knew it couldn't be just 60 lines but got excited and hit enter. Regardless, to your earlier point, I don't dig into the protocol's details often and just rely on the library.

Micropython and this WebSocket client DO run on the ESP8266. As noted before, I'm using these libraries on a D1 mini. I don't know the specifics of the memory footprint as I stay away from applications where I'm up against the wall of my device's capabilities. But the point stands that there's plenty enough space on the ESP8266 for the glorious luxury of micropython.

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