Yeah, you can't find it because there isn't any at the moment! We're totally concentrating on one tool for now, partly because it is one of the main experimental pieces. mbed == online development.
Ok, I see. That wasn't really clear to me before ordering. Also the tour page wasn't available then. Mabye you could write it even clearer, that it's only about online compiling. I think I read it elsewhere, that there'd be a documented way to compile offline.
To give an example of the value we're hoping to benefit from: e.g. support (both official and within a community); when people have problems, everyone is in the same boat. You don't have to go through the which version of this, what branched modded version of that pre-amble. We don't know all the upsides and downsides yet, but we have learned that technical features are not the only consideration. There is lots of scope for additional features, toolchains etc, but I hope you understand that has to be balanced with trying to do too much too soon!
Shure. I just can't trust long web edit sessions as long as there's no google gear type technologie in the background which can transparently backup things for offline work... You probably won't belive it, but FF just crashed while I was editing this post. And no, that doesn't happen often to me. Actually I can't remember the last time it happend, but it really is anoing.
You may have now the advantage, that my 2nd reply attempt is slightly more dense and to the point. :)
I'll check if the code sourcery toolchain works with the mbed LPCs, because I allready have it. Next will take a look at what NXP recommends.
There is some really interesting work on "the paradox of choice" which I'm a big fan of, and the cost of variety over conventions (see e.g. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6127548813950043200#). It might give you some ideas of what we're trying to learn from.
Nice, thanks. I like stuff like that! Do you know John Maeda's "Laws of Simplicity"? It's not too deep, but still a good read from an interesting character.
Are there any alternative upload methods known?
The module actually accepts any raw binary suitable for the target; it doesn't matter how the .bin file was generated. There is no magic in the binary or a bootloader etc - you have full bare metal control over the target micro.
Cool, thats good to know. Is there any chance the full schematic will be published? I figured out the small LPC handles the USB connector and is also connected to JTAG of the big one. Will this architecture stay with the coming boards?
I guess by now you are asking your self why the hell I'm not simply using the nice API and creating fun things with it, right? :-D Well, I'm approaching and following the whole arduino/mbed movement more from a professional engineer's point of view. I understand these technologies are not geared towards the old EE department in the first place, but I envision better architectures and simpler designs are possible with the same new simple tools and ideas also in that field. And of course, I was curious to see and analyze what would be an ARM's approach to an arduino like developement env!
Some of the control we've kept for now is exactly because we don't think it is all right yet, but we've also seen the problems of working with lots of variants and variables or creating legacy too early; nowadays, fork is cheap, so maintaining some level of control helps stop early fragmentation until a good precedent is set. It is not obvious whether this is the right choice yet, or how the upsides/downsides will change over time, but it is hopefully grounded in sensible reasoning :)
Hm, ok - but as long as there's no e.g. API sources there's no need to fear forks anyway. :)
Noted, thanks. We'll make sure we retest 3.5.2 on OS X (btw, the right click menus are available as cntl-click, but should really also be right click)
Ah, got it! I think I've never used a mac with only a one button mouse (and I think I don't know anyone who does it in these times :) so that didn't come to my mind. The visible text cursor is more important, since you don't see where you'd place your next typo. ;)
We're not trying to replace anything, so we'd definitely encourage people to go with other solutions if they suit them better than mbed. In fact, we expect some people to really hate what we're doing! But we're happy with that as long as there are some people that love what we're trying. In my mind, the worst position to get to would be an attempt at all things to all people.
And hopefully some more functions will spring up over time :)
I see. So exploring some of the things I'm interested in with the current mbed archiecture, could be probably a bit problematic, since its not meant to be used as an open architecture?
E.g. what about USB CDC Ethernet on the small LPC that could then talk xmlhttp style debug messages (JTAG!) to the IDE? That'd be something very interesting for me to explore and where I'd like to work on. And it would be a very good reason to justify usage of the custom web IDE. When I applied for the beta with the CDC ethernet idea I allready intended to build some sort of debugging help with it and I did't knew about the 2nd, smaller LPC onboard. But with that fact in mind, my idea seems to be an even more reasonable topic.
So for now it looks like I'm interested too much in the core workings of mbed. Probably a typical engineer illness ;)
Or is there any company-related-properties escape route planed for activities and interests on mbed's internal things?
Mike Sheldon.
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hey,
I'm a little wondering, why I can't find info about how to compile stuff off-line. I see I can checkout the object and header files of the lib and also the code one writes in the online IDE.
But, isn't there anything like a suggested makefile or even a recommended toolchain environment?
I really don't feel comfortable using a web editor, sorry. Especially as I don't see any benefit in using the Web IDE since it offers no special functions besides the SVN and API integration.
Are there any alternative upload methods known? I guess the small LPC2148 on the back handles the curent USB file upload function, right?
Am I the only one who thinks, it's all a bit too much closed source and information?
Web IDE problems:
Firefox 3.5.2 under OS X has problems with the IDE. no right click menus, no text-cursor visible when coding.
No real problem for me, since I won't use the online IDE anyway... ;) In Safari 4 its ok.
Ciao, Oli