When a company begins its march into oblivion
-
... is when they stop responding to the needs of their users. I work on little IoT platforms, and I have a heavy favorite (Espressif for their ESP32 line) for a number of reasons, but as a company they seem to be on a trajectory of getting a little too big for their own good. Less responsive to changing times, less agile in the face of user feedback. I'm far from ready to abandon them, but I'm concerned about the direction of their supporting software framework, particularly as it pertains to driving LCD screens. They seem to be corralling their users to a single graphics library solution for their entire platform line, and I'm over on their github making feature requests trying to put a stop to it. This isn't to dish on their products, or anything. They make great gear. And like I said, I'm more at the concern phase. They could very well pull out a win and surprise me on this front. It's still early, this change in the air I sensed. We'll see how it plays out. But I don't like thinking of even the idea of this line being one I have to abandon. I've invested a lot into it, and I've become rather attached. Which way are you headed, Espressif? Don't be Microsoft.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
-
... is when they stop responding to the needs of their users. I work on little IoT platforms, and I have a heavy favorite (Espressif for their ESP32 line) for a number of reasons, but as a company they seem to be on a trajectory of getting a little too big for their own good. Less responsive to changing times, less agile in the face of user feedback. I'm far from ready to abandon them, but I'm concerned about the direction of their supporting software framework, particularly as it pertains to driving LCD screens. They seem to be corralling their users to a single graphics library solution for their entire platform line, and I'm over on their github making feature requests trying to put a stop to it. This isn't to dish on their products, or anything. They make great gear. And like I said, I'm more at the concern phase. They could very well pull out a win and surprise me on this front. It's still early, this change in the air I sensed. We'll see how it plays out. But I don't like thinking of even the idea of this line being one I have to abandon. I've invested a lot into it, and I've become rather attached. Which way are you headed, Espressif? Don't be Microsoft.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
-
No. For starters, the display is the central way the user will interact with a typical project. This is especially true when it's a touch screen. It is also the single biggest code sink (where all the code takes most of the project time), and the single biggest hardware bottleneck in most cases to boot, so it's where your CPU will spend most of its time. Such that typically, projects are literally designed around their screen, both in terms of coded to the actual hardware, and structured such that the UI interaction with the screen directly dictates the overall structure and flow of the application. It is *the* central point of most real world IoT projects that have a screen.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
-
No. For starters, the display is the central way the user will interact with a typical project. This is especially true when it's a touch screen. It is also the single biggest code sink (where all the code takes most of the project time), and the single biggest hardware bottleneck in most cases to boot, so it's where your CPU will spend most of its time. Such that typically, projects are literally designed around their screen, both in terms of coded to the actual hardware, and structured such that the UI interaction with the screen directly dictates the overall structure and flow of the application. It is *the* central point of most real world IoT projects that have a screen.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
-
... is when they stop responding to the needs of their users. I work on little IoT platforms, and I have a heavy favorite (Espressif for their ESP32 line) for a number of reasons, but as a company they seem to be on a trajectory of getting a little too big for their own good. Less responsive to changing times, less agile in the face of user feedback. I'm far from ready to abandon them, but I'm concerned about the direction of their supporting software framework, particularly as it pertains to driving LCD screens. They seem to be corralling their users to a single graphics library solution for their entire platform line, and I'm over on their github making feature requests trying to put a stop to it. This isn't to dish on their products, or anything. They make great gear. And like I said, I'm more at the concern phase. They could very well pull out a win and surprise me on this front. It's still early, this change in the air I sensed. We'll see how it plays out. But I don't like thinking of even the idea of this line being one I have to abandon. I've invested a lot into it, and I've become rather attached. Which way are you headed, Espressif? Don't be Microsoft.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
honey the codewitch wrote:
when they stop responding to the needs of their users ... corralling their users to a single graphics library solution for their entire platform line
It sounds like there are multiple graphics solutions now available. Maybe customers were asking for a single solution, to ease porting from one platform to another?
Software Zen:
delete this; -
honey the codewitch wrote:
when they stop responding to the needs of their users ... corralling their users to a single graphics library solution for their entire platform line
It sounds like there are multiple graphics solutions now available. Maybe customers were asking for a single solution, to ease porting from one platform to another?
Software Zen:
delete this;It's not that simple, and it's why I used the term corralling. The latest bits have a new feature, called the LCD panel API. It really only works well with LVGL. Every other offering you're seeing is not using the LCD panel API, which is again, new. By other offerings I mean, TFT_eSPI, Lovyan_GFX, htcw_gfx, and the various Adafruit libraries. There's a technical reason they only work well with LVGL, which I can get into but it's quite a discussion, and has to do with the *unique* way in which LVGL is designed compared to other libraries.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
-
No. For starters, the display is the central way the user will interact with a typical project. This is especially true when it's a touch screen. It is also the single biggest code sink (where all the code takes most of the project time), and the single biggest hardware bottleneck in most cases to boot, so it's where your CPU will spend most of its time. Such that typically, projects are literally designed around their screen, both in terms of coded to the actual hardware, and structured such that the UI interaction with the screen directly dictates the overall structure and flow of the application. It is *the* central point of most real world IoT projects that have a screen.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
-
Your 'over' reaction tells me, I was something right. While I'm working for years now with visually handicapped peoples I 'see' that something different ;)
Well, IoT devices if they're designed for people that are visually handicapped, they will be specialized for that in hardware. These are not general purpose PCs.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
