A Web Developer's Guide to Communication Protocols (SPI, I2C, UART, GPIO)

blog.technical.io

8 pointsFrijol4 comments

That's cute. It's really a document for the Tessel development board, which is an Arduino competitor. That's programmed in Javascript. Yes, Javascript for embedded programming. Uses node.js. They have to use an ARM CPU to get enough power to support Javascript, but ARM CPUs are cheap now. It's hardly worth bothering with something as dinky as the Arduino's Atmel ATMega any more, unless you're building a million low-end appliances.

Javascript is now the only language many programmers need, whether on server, desktop client, mobile client, or embedded system.

"They have to use an ARM CPU to get enough power to support Javascript, but ARM CPUs are cheap now."

Hum, I might but wrong but I don't think javascript code is actually executed on the chip. I haven't checked but the javascript is probably transpiled to something else (Lua ?) or a higher level binding to a library that calls function of a C firmware loaded on the chip. The node.js module johnny-five + the Firmata firmware gives your the later for Arduino.

Twenty years ago you could have said the same of C. I guess that's progress!

It seems that the link is broken on tumblr, any updates? thx

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