- Mon May 30, 2016 3:48 pm
#48286
I have posted a couple of new Driving Lesson chapters.
ESP_Basic 3 offered a golden opportunity for its release to be accompanied by appropriate documentation however long it might have taken. But it hasn't happened. If ESP_Basic 1 was the birth of a baby, ESP_Basic 2 was a toddler, and I feel ESP_Basic 3 is trying to push the toddler into becoming an olympic athlete before it is even completely potty-trained. Without the existing problems being sorted out (and by problems I basically mean lack of documentation) they will become embedded into any future growth and never resolved.
Take interrupt as an example... but unfortunately we can't - because it doesn't have an example! There is no explanation that interrupt requires a hardware pullup resistor to work, or that it generates an interrupt on both press and release which will effectively cancel each other out unless one of the interrupts is filtered out. It is a clever and useful implementation, but it is unable to be used by those who don't know how to use it, and has no way for them to learn how to use it other than by individual painful trial and error which will probably be abandoned in frustration by many. Even more frustrating is to be told that something like HTMLID() is available which could achieve a required task but without any info available for how to achieve it. It is such a great shame that such a clever concept and implementation is being let down simply from lack of useful examples and explanation.
Driving Lessons was my attempt to contribute by trying to bridge the gap between what's in the developers brilliant minds and the info that ordinary Joe Public needs to know to use such things. I knew where I wanted to go, so if I could find out how to get there I had an opportunity to pass on that info to others in the form of a more easily digested tutorial.
But the release of V3 shows that documentation is less of a priority than innovation, and even before the release of V3, too many questions remain unanswered for me to guess the missing answers or make sufficient headway. So it has become clear that I am in no position to be offering help to anyone. I have therefore wound it up by publishing the 2 almost completed V2 chapters, and must leave anything else for someone else who knows better than me to pick up and continue with if they choose. Please don't misunderstand, I know people are busy, and I am not complaining about any lack of useful personal help. I am simply pointing out the unavoidable conclusion that because I cannot find out the required ESP_Basic usage info to make any headway I obviously have no progress to pass on for the benefit of others. Which I feel is a shame, because ESP_Basic could be so much more useful to so many more people (ie, popular) if only it had adequate accompanying examples and instructions for use. Lack of examples and info has been a voiced by other people in the past, and I feel the only way that situation is likely to change in the future is if new development announcements are paused long enough to allow catchup.
I have working Sonoff V2 scripts for use with onboard DHT as a temperature or humidity stat controller, as a delayed On or Off timer, as a Cycled On or Off Duration timer, and as a udp network controlled switch, and also for 2 networked Sonoffs to be controlling each other with their onboard buttons. These are currently all dressed as unfinished tutorial excercises at the moment, but I will probably eventually strip them down and publish them as functional standalone V2 scripts for anyone who may want them.
ESP_Basic 3 offered a golden opportunity for its release to be accompanied by appropriate documentation however long it might have taken. But it hasn't happened. If ESP_Basic 1 was the birth of a baby, ESP_Basic 2 was a toddler, and I feel ESP_Basic 3 is trying to push the toddler into becoming an olympic athlete before it is even completely potty-trained. Without the existing problems being sorted out (and by problems I basically mean lack of documentation) they will become embedded into any future growth and never resolved.
Take interrupt as an example... but unfortunately we can't - because it doesn't have an example! There is no explanation that interrupt requires a hardware pullup resistor to work, or that it generates an interrupt on both press and release which will effectively cancel each other out unless one of the interrupts is filtered out. It is a clever and useful implementation, but it is unable to be used by those who don't know how to use it, and has no way for them to learn how to use it other than by individual painful trial and error which will probably be abandoned in frustration by many. Even more frustrating is to be told that something like HTMLID() is available which could achieve a required task but without any info available for how to achieve it. It is such a great shame that such a clever concept and implementation is being let down simply from lack of useful examples and explanation.
Driving Lessons was my attempt to contribute by trying to bridge the gap between what's in the developers brilliant minds and the info that ordinary Joe Public needs to know to use such things. I knew where I wanted to go, so if I could find out how to get there I had an opportunity to pass on that info to others in the form of a more easily digested tutorial.
But the release of V3 shows that documentation is less of a priority than innovation, and even before the release of V3, too many questions remain unanswered for me to guess the missing answers or make sufficient headway. So it has become clear that I am in no position to be offering help to anyone. I have therefore wound it up by publishing the 2 almost completed V2 chapters, and must leave anything else for someone else who knows better than me to pick up and continue with if they choose. Please don't misunderstand, I know people are busy, and I am not complaining about any lack of useful personal help. I am simply pointing out the unavoidable conclusion that because I cannot find out the required ESP_Basic usage info to make any headway I obviously have no progress to pass on for the benefit of others. Which I feel is a shame, because ESP_Basic could be so much more useful to so many more people (ie, popular) if only it had adequate accompanying examples and instructions for use. Lack of examples and info has been a voiced by other people in the past, and I feel the only way that situation is likely to change in the future is if new development announcements are paused long enough to allow catchup.
I have working Sonoff V2 scripts for use with onboard DHT as a temperature or humidity stat controller, as a delayed On or Off timer, as a Cycled On or Off Duration timer, and as a udp network controlled switch, and also for 2 networked Sonoffs to be controlling each other with their onboard buttons. These are currently all dressed as unfinished tutorial excercises at the moment, but I will probably eventually strip them down and publish them as functional standalone V2 scripts for anyone who may want them.
