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Are you familiar with Node Red? It is an IBM project that is a self hosted website you can run on a raspberry pi, or a traditional PC or server. The tool allows you to graphically build Node.js applications, through some key abstractions. Node you drag into the canvas has inputs and or outputs which can be connected to other nodes, by simply clicking and dragging between them. As an embedded developer, I was far more interested in determining the viability of an implementation than learning node.js. To me, Node Red is the superior evolution of node.js. But I can certainly appreciate that people who learned node.js to any degree, before finding out about Node Red, see far less utility in it than I do. For a mirror image of this phenomenon, Arduino allows novices to circumvent the traditional learning curve required to develop embedded systems, through its key abstractions. Yet, every embedded developer I know immediately attacks the downsides of Arduino. Its not really teaching its users much. At least in its infancy, much of the underlying code was cowboy spaghetti. You would never use Arduino in a production environment. Yet somehow, Arduino is flourishing. I'll admit that since it's open source, that is a key distinction. But Adafruit.com, and Sparkfun.com are literally printing money with Arduinos and the ecosystem they facilitated. Each is a private company, but each has revealed at least one year of revenue exceeding $30,000,000. Each also provides schematics, datasheets, and tutorials for every single product they sell, if it is within their rights to provide such information. |