TechComm Labs

Peter takes note that it is Time for the world peashooting championships again!. This is what happens when junior high school kids get older but don’t grow up. Age does make a difference as the tools of youth tend to acquire a sophistication of accessories and enhancements. While some keep to the bare bones classic straw armament, others are using gyroscopic stabilization, optical scopes, and laser indicators. Check it out.

Test equipment has an input, a processing component, and a display. Modern computing technologies have complicated the question about how these should be integrated. From standalone devices and chart recorders the trend is towards segregating the functions of data collection, processing that data for measurement, and display of the measurement.

Electronics Lab describes an interesting example in Screenscope: a standalone oscilloscope – just connect a monitor. Oscilloscopes provide an interesting example because of the potential for complex processing and the need for a graphic display. Ancient technology just collected a signal, scaled it, and shot it onto a CRT for display. Modern equivalents digitize the signal, subject it to all sorts of analysis, and then create a graphical presentation. The range runs from the standalone oscilloscope to the software that uses a sound card on a common PC. In between are the data collectors that feed software on a PC and the Screenscope that only uses the display.

The key for the Screenscope is that it bundles its software with its input and only uses a video display as a ‘shared’ component. This heads towards the standalone format with only one expensive subsystem left for the user to define. This puts the software component as a commodity and reduces user complexity and constraints significantly.

The next step is one most often seen in video monitoring systems. Those present a video camera as a node on a network that can be used via a standard web browser interface. Geographic information systems are another example in this vein where personal navigation devices can provide not only a map display but also provide position information to an upstream computer. The possibilities are enabled by inexpensive processing capabilities that can not only provide the intended measurement but also present that via net services. They need to be able to provide both the manufacturer’s intended function with built in software but also to allow access to the collected input in near real time so that users or third parties can leverage the equipment via standard interfaces and protocols for additional or custom processing and use.

As with video, there are many ideas being tried to determine protocols and procedures as well as presentation and subsystems. The access to various subsystems is often obscured due to concerns about intellectual property protection. Progress is being made but there remains a long road to go. The goal is to make it easy for users to be able to choose their level of involvement and customization and to move the level of expertise for this from internal development engineer with access to proprietary information to that of the informed amatuer.

Java was the groundbreaker a bit more than ten years ago. It looked to consolidate much that had been learned about programming languages. Advances since then have been signficiant and that has led to a lot of cruft in Java, many followers-on, and significant distractions in the many scripting languages that have popped up with new ideas trying to meet demand.

Google has joined the fray. Ostatic describes the effort in Google Unleashes Go: A Brand New Systems Programming Language.

If its pedigree is any indication, Go is in good shape. The initial design for Go was scoped out by Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, and Robert Griesemer. You might remember some of those names from such projects as Unix, C, and Plan 9.

At the Go website, there is a Language Design FAQ that describes the stimulus for yet another computer language

Go was born out of frustration with existing languages and environments for systems programming. Programming had become too difficult and the choice of languages was partly to blame. One had to choose either efficient compilation, efficient execution, or ease of programming; all three were not available in the same mainstream language. Programmers who could were choosing ease over safety and efficiency by moving to dynamically typed languages such as Python and JavaScript rather than C++ or, to a lesser extent, Java.

I like this guiding principle comment

Programming today involves too much bookkeeping, repetition, and clerical work. As Dick Gabriel says, “Old programs read like quiet conversations between a well-spoken research worker and a well-studied mechanical colleague, not as a debate with a compiler. Who’d have guessed sophistication bought such noise?” The sophistication is worthwhile—no one wants to go back to the old languages—but can it be more quietly achieved?

Over on Slashdot, someone noted that there isn’t a big library defined for Go (yet). Responses indicated how this sort of gap could be provided using examples such as CPAN or a JVM translator. The key, though, is to keep it simple. Make a lean, mean, efficient, modern programming language and the rest will come.

This effort has a small team with undisputed pedigree in an environment that at the top of the heap in the modern software paradigm. The values are appealing, at least to me. It will be worth keeping track of this one.

Planet Debian described Bohrbugs: OpenOffice.org won’t print on Tuesdays and that lead to Wikipedia and Unusual software bug.

I didn’t know they had names!

Smashing Magazine ~ we smash you with the information that will make your life easier. really. – Essential Guide To Regular Expressions: Tools and Tutorials

an essential part of any programmer’s toolkit. They can be very handy when you need to identify, replace or modify text, words, patterns or characters. In a nutshell: regular expressions (regex) are like a Swiss army knife for modifying strings of just about anything. Need to make your site URLs look pretty? Use regex. Need to remove all punctuation from a sentence? Definitely use regex. The uses for regular expressions are almost limitless.

It is programming against text and it can get complex and very difficult to read. The article has a number of links to quick reference cards and tutorials that will help learn and use regular expressions. Not every editor or string processing language uses exactly the same syntax. That is why the reference to Comparison of Regular Expression Engines at Wikipedia is useful.

Powerful tools need a bit of work to learn to use properly and they also need careful attention to safeguards!

For $33 you can have a lot of fun putting together ($49 assembled) a digital storage oscilloscope suitable for audio frequencies. SMT soldering skill is required and you’ll need a 9-12 VDC or VAC power source. The display is rather small, the software is open source, and the price is getting down to toy levels.