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If I find myself repeating the same thing over and over it occurs to me that I need to optimize.
Doubly so when working with a computer - after all, the computer is there to do work so I don't have to.
There's something to be said for repetition of course. Practice helps, and there's something to be said about tried and true methods, especially in production code, but again, repetition raises the question of optimization.
This is why design patterns make me low key uncomfortable. I feel like they should be baked into the language, rather than having to repeat the same boilerplate over and over again. With C# they spend all this time adding fluff to the language, when they could be baking in design patterns. Seems a missed opportunity.
I'm a fan of the idea of Domain Specific Languages for this reason, even though I've never used one aside from Synthmaker/Flowstone which I'm not sure counts.
What I'd really like is a language that allows one to augment the grammar, sort of like C# source generator tech except it extends the keywords and syntax of the language and then uses the new grammar to generate code.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Maybe as a hobbyist my opinion does not count for much as I do not live this everyday. But I feel that the language should be as simple and basic as possible. Let libraries and frameworks do the real heavy lifting. I use C++ which has pointers, references, classes, inheritance, polymorphism, and templates built in. Using that people were able to build libraries like the STL and frameworks like MFC and QT among many others.
I feel if all that was built into the C++ language itself then the language becomes too overbearing and too hard to learn.
But then again, maybe I am totally missing your whole point.
Within you lies the power for good - Use it!
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No, you make a good point, and C++ is a great example of what happens when a language tries to solve everything.
It's just that if libraries could fill the gap by themselves, I feel like they would have already?
It seems to me that libraries tend to fulfill one pattern while creating another (the one you have to use to interact with a library) and based on some DSL work by a former Microsoft mucky muck whose name escapes me at the moment but whose work I've looked over in the past, it seems like having language support for some of these patterns is really the way to solve that last mile integration issue.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Quote: It's just that if libraries could fill the gap by themselves, I feel like they would have already?
Stop inventing new problems and processes. Then the current libraries will be enough.
As long as there is a perceived need for something new, someone will write a library to fill that need. Take your pixel library for instance. I am sure there is already libraries out there that would do what yours does, but not the way you want it done. So you wrote another library for it.
Just more people reinventing the same wheel over and over again.
Within you lies the power for good - Use it!
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Forgive me but I think you're missing my point.
You can't write a library to do this:
public component Foo {
public Bar { get; set; }
}
The issue there is at some point you need to insert those actual methods into your code, or inherit from something that already implements Bar which you can't do if Bar is your project specific property.
As such, you're left with one other option for automating this. Source Generators, which require some kind of input spec. Metadata attributes don't quite cut it here, because they aren't descriptive enough. Being able to extend the language via Source Generators solves this. That was the last mile integration I was talking about.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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honey the codewitch wrote: What I'd really like is a language that allows one to augment the grammar,
They call it Forth. 
"In testa che avete, Signor di Ceprano?"
-- Rigoletto
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I would argue that Forth doesn't have any grammar to speak of. It's just a string of words strewn together.
Would stream-of-consciousness language* be an appropriate name? 
*) Name calling made with love: in another life I wrote a Forth interpreter for a PDP-11
Mircea
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honey the codewitch wrote: What I'd really like is a language that allows one to augment the grammar,
Extensible languages, bell-bottoms and polka dots were a thing in the 60-es. They didn't age too well 
For your reading pleasure check this SPG language.
Mircea
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There are all kinds of ways to skin that cat though, and the 1960s you had some severe limitations in terms of compilers due to the limited RAM and speed of computers in that era.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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I say, stop bloating the languages. Do the basics well, and use libraries for everything else. If you keep doing the same thing repeatedly, libraries are well suited for that purpose - do it once, wrap it up, and re-use it.
Otherwise you're just extending the language to suit your own needs, and everybody's needs are different - and that's what leads to bloat. Not only that, but you end up spending more time tinkering with the language extensions than the actual code and business logic. And not everybody can work at that level.
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Seems like C# got bloated without really doing any of this.
is it really such a bad idea for example to do
public component Foo { // implements IComponent, IPropertyNotify, IDisposable etc
public Bar { get; set; } // generates OnBarChanged/BarChanged, etc
};
and save all of that code? You can't really make that into a library. At best you're using a C# Source Generator and some sort of input document.
or even
public entity Contact { // implements all of the data bound stuff
};
And if that's too much, what about simply the ability to extend the grammar via Source Generators so you could create or install these (as nuget packages) to extend the language as the project requires?
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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What you describe is exactly why I think MSFT is on point with the "targetted models" approach to AI-assist in code.
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Now that's interesting. It occurred to me that AI might be able to insert itself here with some benefit to the developer but I wouldn't know enough about it - having not even used CoPilot for example - to really say so this is news to me.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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That is what IDEs should help with.
They will write all of that boiler plate for you.
The new AI generators might help, too. I have not used them directly, but I have watched team mates flounder trying to have AI generate simple commands that I was able to find in the man page.
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I mean, I think it would be better if the boilerplate didn't have to exist, if possible, simply because even if generated, it still creates a maintenance point.
If some of the boilerplate were baked in as language constructs, or if the language was extensible, you could eliminate that boilerplate at the last mile .i commented to some others here giving an example that a library couldn't solve in C#, but the IDE approach, while it would solve it and does, even with like Winforms tech and InitializeComponent(), now you have InitializeComponent() to maintain. Not the greatest example because it round trips from the designer but most of the time with most tools that's not the case.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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The product is expensive, but I haven't seen anything to compete with it, and I need the ability to sniff MODBUS commands and responses on a RS-485 bus, interpret them correctly, and save them to a log. This item looks like it will do the job, but it needs to be connected to a PC to perform. I'm thinking I can build or buy a single board computer small enough to be deployed in the field inside a weather-proof box for a week or two to search for missing commands or spurious ones. It would be very helpful to hear from previous users, though, before I embark on this course.
IO Ninja Hardware Manual (NHM)[^]
Will Rogers never met me.
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I haven't, but they do have a forum which might be a good place to duplicate this request?
Home | IO Ninja Forum[^]
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Thanks! I'll spend some time surfing the forum!
Will Rogers never met me.
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Interesting, but as with most MODBUS products, it wants to be either a Master or a Slave. I just need to log everything on the bus.
Will Rogers never met me.
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Nice system! If I was working on developing devices it would be very helpful. But I need something I can hang in a cabinet in the field and let it run. I have a solar array (840 kW) connected to a battery (1 MW / 2 MWh), both controlled by a Site Controller. There have been some anomalous events over the past few months, and I suspect communications issues. With 14 inverters, three diesel generators and one big battery, it's hard to isolate which unit is having problems, especially when I can't get confirmation that the controller even sent the proper commands! Seriously, who would build a system controller that has no logging capability? I expected better of Tesla!
Will Rogers never met me.
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You *could* in theory make one of these. I'm not sure what it costs, but if it's expensive and you're not sure you could produce one yourself with some work.
I made something similar, but it was simply for a basic serial UART, not RS-485.
i2cu Take Two: Serial and I2C Probe in a Handy Package[^]
You could adapt code like that using code like this:
GitHub - zivillian/esp32-modbus-gateway: ESP32 Modbus RTU/TCP Gateway[^]
Just a thought, even though it may not be realistic for you. I'd do it, but then I'm a bit crazy.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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I was thinking something like passing it through a pi kind of akin to a proxy. Just echo the traffic out the other side.
A simple device to do only that might have market because splitting it means you could have the traffic sent to logging and the device, or maybe to a 'real device' and also a device under development/testing.
They build something like this in a pizza box rack mount style, though I don't recall what it was called. PC feeds all serial to it and it then feeds the serial wherever you configure/connect it.
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