Pymkr to upgrade firmware?

[Pete]

The blurb for Pykmr includes the line "It also takes care of firmware upgrades". The normal OSX upgrader doesn't work for me, so I thought I'd see if I had any more luck through Pymkr. But I can't find anywhere in the UI that appears to provide this function. Am I missing something, or did someone get carried away writing the marketing text? :-)

Pete

[sakis]

Hi,

You are right. Pymakr doesn't support firmware upgrades and in my opinion it shouldn't since that's not the job of an IDE. I'll ask a colleague to help you with the original problem that you have (upgrading the firmware in macOS).

[Pete]

Thanks Sakis - I suspected as much.

You may want to remove that statement from the description of Pymakr - I've seen it in at least one other place as well although I can't find a link now.

Pete

[arthurlutz]

@sakis maybe the "blurb for Pymkr" should not include the "It also takes care of firmware upgrades" ? (eventough I think it could be quite user friendly to have that feature there... )

[sakis]

@arthurlutz

I agree and I'll request its removal

[Shaun]

@sakis Personaly I think Pymakr should deliver the Kickstarter promise of being the "one and only tool you'll ever need to develop on the WiPy and LoPy"

"Pymakr connects automatically to your WiPy or LoPy via the serial or Telnet Server, runs your code on the fly, manages the internal file system, synchronizes your code instantly and runs it with just one click. It also takes care of firmware upgrades and includes a built in console that interfaces with the MicroPython REPL. Features code completion, static analysis, PEP8 style checking and a built-in interactive prompt. Pymakr is the one and only tool you'll ever need to develop on the WiPy and LoPy."

Edit:
Right now, Pymaker is the only tool I don't use as it does not work for anything but the most simple of exercises.
I would very much like to use only one tool, and not have to use FileZilla to manage the file system, and a tool for firmware updates and Putty for code debugging and an editor that is configurable to how I want the editor to work.

[Pete]

@Shaun Well, a high-quality "one and only tool" would be nice, but personally I'd rather the Pycom team focused their attention on making and keeping the core runtime and APIs comprehensive and reliable (see all the posts of "I upgraded the firmware and X stopped working", and asking for stuff like power management). I have a decent editor (atom), I don't mind running a python script to deploy new firmware, and connecting to the device with telnet is business as usual (well, usual would be ssh, but the experience is much the same). These tools work, and I can use different ones if I'd prefer, but when it comes to what runs on the device itself we all have to take whatever Pycom provide. I'd much rather they focus on the bits that only they can do, rather than spend time duplicating the bits that other tools and projects can already do.

[sakis]

All,

Feel free to leave your comments here: https://forum.pycom.io/topic/635/pymakr-time-of-death-09-02

I think that this is the right decision and that's why I fully supported it.

[arthurlutz]

@shaun I would tent to agree that if pycom sold and promised on a tool that would enable a quickstart with their devices, that pymakr could/should be feature-full.

On the other side, my remark was considering non developer type profiles, which is not my case. My day job is developing python so I am unlikely to end up using Eric/PyMakr when programming for my devices (I'm usually in vim/emacs/plateform.io when developing).

I do meet @Pete's point of view when it comes to priorities. Maybe pycom should have some tool to get the community to vote on such priorities (pragmatic approach). And if they do things in the open, the community can chip in.

@sakis I'll go an comment there...