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Raspberry Pi For the Rest of Us
mikejuk writes "The Raspberry Pi might be a cheap and reasonably powerful but it has a tough learning curve due to the Linux OS it uses. Adafruit, better known for their hardware, are working on a WebIDE which you can use to program the Pi without having to set things up. You write the code in a browser and run it on the Pi using a web server hosted by the Pi. It sounds crazy but if it can make the Pi more approachable then perhaps it could turn out to be an educational powerhouse."
Oh no, a steep learning curve on a device which is intended to encourage learning. Seriously.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
If your order is through RS, cancel it immediately and order through Farnell. Farnell actually has their act together.
Isn't the point of the Pi that you can just dump an image onto an SD card and have a fully working environment? Just how bad are the Pi distros?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I don't accept that. The point of the Pi is to replicate the "turn it on and start coding" spirit that us 8 bit kids grew up with.
What a BBC Micro had, that a modern PC doesn't is this: you turned it on, and 3 seconds later there was a BASIC prompt. Page 1 of the "learn to program" book tells you to type:
10 PRINT "Hello World"
20 GOTO 10
If you screw up, you turn it off and on again, no harm done.
20 minutes later, an inquisitive 7 year old will have:
10 PRINT "Hello World" ... and they build up from there until 11 years later they're doing a CS degree.
20 c% = RND(8)
30 COLOUR c%
40 PRINT "Slim is Rad!!!!!!"
50 GOTO 10
There's no "oh, the install is too difficult? Oh bad luck 7-year-old, you've not got it in you."
And that's what the Raspberry Pi is intending to replicate.
(But I don't think this browser thing is the way to do it)
+1 to the parent.
RS does not have any Raspberry Pis... Newark/Farnell/Element14 have them. I cancelled my RS order and got it in 4 days from Newwark. Newark is showing 100 in stock right now.
Slashdot: news for non-nerds that don't want to have to deal with linux.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
The Raspberry Pi isn't an Arduino either. It's not "embedded".
The whole point of the Pi is that it's a fully-fledged standalone system (once you add keyboard/monitor/mouse) - but cheap and robust.
The idea is that a schoolkid -- even one from a family that's not wealthy - can have a Raspberry Pi of their own do mess with as they please. Depending on the distro, it boots to a GUI, you can go straight into an IDE, and if you screw anything up it's easy to start again from scratch.
I've only been waiting TWELVE weeks for the delivery of my Pi.
That's about right: take 1kg raspberries, 0.5kg sugar, 0.5l 95% alcohol, put into a jar. Four months later, filter out the fruit (give it to your mom/wife/grandma for a cake, or whatever). Let the liquid sit for eight more weeks. Filter again, pour into bottles. Ready to drink.
This one is so much simpler than my family's usual tincture recipe that takes multiple steppings and eight months, and for raspberrries, gives good results.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
It's early days yet, but this is what we're trying to develop at http://curiouschip.com/ - a self-contained modern machine that boots straight into a programming environment that promotes exploration and experimentation. We had our first prototype units on show at the Brighton Mini Maker Faire a couple of weeks ago and had an awesome reception; more details will be released in the coming weeks.
embedded as in controller.
you can boot and run the Pi 100% headless, have it boot right into a control program and then start watching 'pins' for changes of sensors, or spinning motors with an h-bridge or servo.
does not need even a 'proper' boot media.
and its small and runs on single voltage.
to me, that meets enough of the practical def for embedded use.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I ordered my Pi from Element14 on Aug 14th and it shipped on Aug 28th. I don't know what you are doing wrong such that you haven't received yours yet.
Once my Pi arrived, I downloaded an SD card image, wrote it to a card using dd, added power to the Pi and everything worked straight away. The parts that took the most effort were retrieving my spare cell phone charger and finding an HDMI cable to connect it to my TV.
Where is all the hate coming from?
One reason people seem not to "get it" is that we have a tendency to underestimate the ability of kids to learn things like Linux. Many primary school children are not at all phased by a Linux shell, and they're already expert in googling things and working stuff out for themselves. Perhaps because older geeks didn't grow up with the tinterweb, we can't imagine how easy it is for kids to learn geek knowledge at a young age.
All hail the coming Pi generation. I, for one, welcome our young Linux-hacking overlords.
RS
Lame.
I means seriously, the Pi is designed to get kids (and adults) to LEARN how a computer works and how to program the device. It's TRIVIAL to download a system image, transfer it to an SD card and boot your Pi. Hell, RS even offered to sell me a pre-formatted SD with the OS pre-installed! How hard is it to click "add one to cart", if you don't want to set up the SD yourself?!?
Seriously, the Pi is not for the iDevice consumer... it's for people who are interested to learn how things work and how to build and code stuff. Making the device idiot-proof is not the way forward.
Only lousy documentation.