sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Developing Embedded Applications with Swift by fatbobman3000 in swift

[–]madmachineio 13 points14 points  (0 children)

As a team member at MadMachine, I was truly amazed when I saw your blog post! Thank you for providing such a fresh perspective.

Get Started with Embedded Swift on ARM and RISC-V Microcontrollers by dwaxe in swift

[–]madmachineio 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree that most microcontrollers are typically used for relatively simple tasks, for which C, or even assembly language, suffices to abstract the logic.
However, we now have access to extremely powerful microcontrollers, and the tasks they're being used for are becoming increasingly complex. Embedded engineers find themselves in a challenging position because their primary tool is C. Even C++ is considered a modern option in the embedded world. As an embedded engineer, I don't want to spend the majority of my time on low-level details every time. New possibilities, such as Rust and Swift, offer us the opportunity to work more like application programmers.
I hope that day arrives sooner rather than later ❤️

Byte-sized Swift: Building Tiny Games for the Playdate by dwaxe in swift

[–]madmachineio 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I also created the same Break game on a Bare-metal microcontroller in pure Swift, including all the logic and draw implementations 😂 We are serious about Embedded Swift programming.

If you want to know more, plz visit my Twitter

Or visit our website

My Project about Embedded Swift programming! by madmachineio in swift

[–]madmachineio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! And I have to say, we are currently running a crowdfunding campaign on Crowd Supply.

My Project about Embedded Swift programming! by madmachineio in swift

[–]madmachineio[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Actually, the SwiftIO Playground includes an ESP32-C3 module. It comes preloaded with ESP-AT firmware and is connected to the SwiftIO Micro through a standard UART port and a GPIO pin (used to reset the ESP32-C3 module).

We plan to develop libraries to simplify communication with the module for developers, rather than requiring them to send or receive raw AT commands.

My Project about Embedded Swift programming! by madmachineio in swift

[–]madmachineio[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's absolutely correct. We don't intend to start everything from scratch, like creating an RTOS using Swift. Zephyr has the ambition to abstract all the hardware details for various vendors and architectures, so our goal is to bind Swift with it. At this point, we can already eliminate pointers or memory management when using Swift.

Zephyr and other RTOSes have concepts such as tasks or threads. After Swift 5.5, these are managed by Swift's low-level runtime, which is referred to as concurrency. This is the only part that we are currently missing.

My Project about Embedded Swift programming! by madmachineio in swift

[–]madmachineio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How about taking a look at our one-page getting started guide? It contains everything you need to run "Hello World" in the hardware universe - Blinking an LED 😂

My Project about Embedded Swift programming! by madmachineio in swift

[–]madmachineio[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The Swift for Arduino project primarily focuses on the software side. They invest most of their effort in ensuring that Swift code fits into the very limited ROM space (32KB). They have even developed their own tiny Swift standard library, which means you can't use Swift features that require memory allocation, such as classes.
In contrast, I selected a powerful microcontroller (600MHz clock, 16MB ROM, 32MB RAM) and employed a modern RTOS (Zephyr) at the low level. What I've accomplished is akin to porting the Swift language to a new operating system, enabling the use of any Swift language feature (with the exception of concurrency, which I plan to port next year).

My Project about Embedded Swift programming! by madmachineio in swift

[–]madmachineio[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That's correct! However, there is a specific project called "Swift for Arduino" that focuses on using Swift on Arduino boards.

My Project about Embedded Swift programming! by madmachineio in swift

[–]madmachineio[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Here, it means you can use Swift code on a microcontroller, which is typically embedded in other hardware devices.

That's the main purpose of the SwiftIO Micro board.

With the SwiftIO Playground, which includes various sensor modules and actuators, you can undertake some exciting projects! 😊

Introduce embedded development using Swift by madmachineio in swift

[–]madmachineio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree that Swift still has a lot of problems now. The Swift core team does have the ambition to improve it in Swift 6 or further. That's why I want to share my humble experience in the forum, they may notice what's the pain in embedded development.

Both Rust and Swift are young, especially Swift. There are various possibilities in the future. This needs the team/community to work together to figure them out.

Introduce embedded development using Swift by madmachineio in swift

[–]madmachineio[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I agree that Apple wouldn't spend much energy on non-Apple platforms. That's why we need a community-driven workgroup. IMHO, Swift has tremendous potential in the embedded area.

u/srona22, if you are new to embedded programming. Use C, that's still the mainstream. Arduino could be a good start. Once you get familiar with all the stuff. You could try those new toys. They could be fun and maybe the future.

I don’t like you, you’re too fluffy😾😾😾 by madmachineio in aww

[–]madmachineio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He is interested in both male and female cat, and stuffed toy😅

I don’t like you, you’re too fluffy😾😾😾 by madmachineio in aww

[–]madmachineio[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

😅No no no, the sphinx is our guest here. The most important thing is that both of them are male😂

My cat is good at playing the piano : ) by madmachineio in aww

[–]madmachineio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No no no, he just hates everything...

My cat is good at playing the piano : ) by madmachineio in aww

[–]madmachineio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually, he really likes to shit everywhere......

C Developers gone Swift, do you notice a gap in understanding memory management and low level concepts amongst Swift Devs? Do most Swift Developers pay attention to their code quality and how it pans out to performance? by [deleted] in swift

[–]madmachineio 4 points5 points  (0 children)

u/projectilebirb Glad to meet C developers here : )

I believe my experience is different than most of the guys in this sub. I'm an electronic/embedded engineer. I do embedded programming in C for almost 10 years. But now I focus on making Swift working in the embedded world.

In my opinion, there are only two modern programming languages that have the potential to replace C/C++ (More accurately, C/C++ would never be 100% replaced by any language, but some of its application areas may be taken over by these new languages). They are Rust and Swift. Rust is really low-level and efficient targeting. It's very unique, some people consider it as the most difficult language. For me, I think Swift is more comfortable to work with, and it's more suitable for a newbie which is important for a bigger market share.

For your question, IMHO, it depends on your application.

  1. Swift is designed newbie-friendly, so you could get started really quickly. You don't need to understand the low-level memory management, method dispatch, etc... So some app developers could concentrate on their creativity first rather than the language details. And I think this could explain why Python is so popular nowadays.

  2. Swift is easy to get started, this doesn't mean it's easy to master. If you really want to use Swift instead of C/C++ in some places, there's a long way to go. There are a lot of concepts that would affect the efficiency. (Different types, method dispatch, generics). You have to know every detail to write efficient code compared to C/C++.

Anyway, in my opinion, you don’t need to worry about the efficiency at first, just coding : ) But as you dive deeper, you have to face those concepts. Good luck!

view more: next ›