Pick One Platform And Stick with it! (assembling a team)

[Anfred]

I have read most of the posts on in this forum.  I have seen many posts interested in doing an eLua port for a specific board.  Sadly, there has been little progress on most ports.  We must combine our efforts!

I am starting a team here.  I need people who are passionate about Lua.  I need people who are not willing to settle for the same old Arduino/RPI options.  People who believe in a world outside of linux and C code.  The future will be about code literacy.  By 2025, the average 12 year-old being able to read code like a it's a Harry Potter novel.  Lua is at the heart of that world.  Lua is the future!
 
OK maybe there will be many languages people use in the furture, but Python and Java have proven to be full of holes, in terms of how they can be used, especially by students and beginners.  I know there has been progress with Scratch and Java game programming etc.  At the end of the day, Lua has the best performance vs. simplicity of all beginner languages.  It is just a matter of not settling for less when we work towards the future of computing in general.  If you have ever read a few posts in the computercraft forum, you will realize this Lua shift is already happening.  Give beginners Lua, they will build tomorrow. 

There has been a shift in what hardware means: you can now get everything on one board for $9!  The best new board for eLua is C.H.I.P from next thing co.  Altough the CHIP can easily run linux, I feel it is time to provide an alternative.  In a few years, there will be no reason to use a microcontroller, boards like CHIP and raspberry pi will replace them.  The best hardware choice for anything is... well... CHIP.  For $9 you get , BTLE, WIFI, 512mb RAM, 4gb Storage, a 1ghz processor, and best of all, a composite video out.  Their github is here.

This means eLuaBrain would run very well on chip!  Why would you want eLua instead of a full linux distro?  Because the price could not be any better, no matter what you are trying to do, $9 for almost all hardware needs is as good as it gets, ever.  Want to make a bluetooth door lock? chip.  A simple 2WD robot? chip.  A board to learn computer programming with Lua? chip.

So I propose we do a port of eLuaBrain for chip.  eLuaBrain is for STM32 boards currently.  If not eLuaBrain, then a new kernel and file system instead.  We need native support for the Allwinner A13 SoC found on the C.H.I.P board.  If successful, the 512mb of ram would make Lua code run very well.  It would be like creating a Commodore 64. or a ZX Spectrum computer, except it would be modern.  Users could learn to code with wifi and bluetooth onboard.  They could make games, even whole, graphical operating systems!

I am not the best coder.  Join this team if you share the vision, regardless of experience.  Or if you are a seasoned programmer, looking for the next great hacking project.  Everything that goes up, must converge; the question is if you want to converge with linux and C code, or if you want to converge with something much more fun and accessible to the masses!

Thanks for Reading!  -Anfred  

[ibisum]

> On Jul 17, 2015, at 18:27, Anfred [via eLua Development] <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> I have read most of the posts on in this forum.  I have seen many posts interested in doing an eLua port for a specific board.  Sadly, there has been little progress on most ports.  We must combine our efforts!
>
> I am starting a team here.  I need people who are passionate about Lua.


A Lua-only system, as a standalone machine with its own complete environment - i.e. use that video output to give us an onboard editor/development environment.  A lot of current Lua-based systems are destinations for cross-compiler-based dev rigs; it’d be nice to use the power we’ve got to forge a Lua-only OS that can support its own development environment and be, indeed, pure 100% Lua, no host-OS.  That has been a goal of mine as a Lua neophyte for a few years now.

So .. I think its a great idea to build our own Lua-only box and extend the existing ones into the full power of the Lua system .. incidentally .. I’m 100% willing to join any motion to make a Lua-only system with some sort of platform purpose.  If anyone is hiring for 100% Lua positions, I’d sure like to know because I’d personally be happy doing nothing more than to be working with Lua full time, and especially if the goal is to prepare a full-spectrum platform approach.  That may just be worth doing for the hell of it, most of all.  ;)

;
--
Jay Vaughan
[hidden email]
http://ibisum.ddns.net/

[Anfred]

Thanks Jay!  I am glad you feel the same way about lua.  Any thoughts on a name for this project?  Here are a few I came up with, let me know if any of them are keepers:
Moon Rock OS
Lubot OS
Lumin OS

I think the kernel may need to be written in C, as well as some other parts.  I am curious to pick apart eLuaBrain and see if we can start with it's code.  The folks over at next thing co. (creators of the CHIP board) are fully open source, so things like wifi drivers could just be ported from their source.

It is also worth mentioning that they got around 20,000 backers on kickstarter!  Making the CHIP a great platform to work with.  I don't think anyone has done an elua CHIP port, or an Allwinner A13 port (the SoC in the CHIP board).  I have no problems with linux, but I think it is time to move on and make a more accessible, beginner friendly, alternative OS.

[Anfred]

It seems a lua kernel is possible.  So creating a kernel and file system would be a great start.  Here are some links to Lua based OS projects:
kKernel is a Lua based kernel

Cormack is a LuaJIT Unix crossover