With the third newsletter we are really getting comfy here. And if you are surprised to receive it, you subscribed to this, it should be expected. Maybe even anticipated.
Now I want to press that if you know of a cool Nerves project or a Nerves talk that really got your juices flowing, send it here. I want them so they can be circulated to the increasingly wide audience of this list. We want to make sure people get to see the best, worst and silliest of Nerves. So make sure we don't miss your favorites.
Official project updates
Introducing Livebook for Nerves, Frank and the Wizards (video)
So Frank joined the Elixir Wizards podcast crew to show them something I'm very excited about. Livebook, with Nerves. The idea being that you can run your quickstart projects on a Nerves device and get both documentation and runnable code directly in the browser.
The video goes through setting up the pi, blinking an LED via Livebook, wifi, firmware updates and assorted shenanigans.
So the work with this Livebook stuff has been happening since Livebook released and is bound to be featured in more places as we go. Should prove a good on-ramp. You can find the WIP repo here.
Community updates
Introducing circuits_cdev at version 0.1.0
So the foundation for this came with previous updates to the Nerves Buildroot to support cdev. The library documentation explains the advantages more clearly so I won't restate it but my basic understanding is that it is a better way of doing GPIO, supported by changes to the Linux kernel. Good job Matt!
Featured Project: PLC / Multifunctional relay
by Yasuhiro Miyake
Nerves has a dedicated following in Japan and this is one project published by that contingent. It shouldn't be surprising that an electronics-focused project like Nerves has a following in Japan. Akihabara was in some ways the original Shenzhen and it remains a place where you can go around botanizing among single components in specialist stalls and find really in-depth computer and electronic stores.
Some of what is produced by the Nerves community members over in Japan is only published in Japanese and might easily slip you by. We'll try to call them out when we see them because automated translation does bridge the gap a fair bit.
In this piece @myasu shows their work on a PLC / Multifunctional controller.
Blog post: Elixir/NervesでPLC(多機能リレー)を作ってみた (or Translated by Google)
Have a project you think would interest the Nerves community?
Let us know and we might feature it!
Featured talk: Nerves of Steel
by Jon Carstens & Very
Part of the Nerves in Action web series. Jon talks about achieving uptime and reliability with Nerves. This also provides a lot of foundational Nerves knowledge, so a very decent primer and serious guidance on making sure you can always update your device.
Video: Nerves of Steel
Nerves technical note: Networking
VintageNet is the networking suite for Nerves. It has a pluggable system that we call Technology. The new project generator will set you up with the wifi, ethernet and usb Technologies enabling networking out of the box with little setup. We also have a project called vintage_net_wizard that will create a virtual access point for users to configure with a mobile phone or other wifi enabled device.
-Connor
Supporting the Nerves project
We want to encourage everyone to contribute in whatever way works for them. Here are some ways we currently recommend:
- Write or port a new hardware library and include it in the Elixir Circuits collection.
- Give money to the project via Open Collective.
- Get in touch about taking over maintenance duties for some libraries, we might be able to provide you hardware.
- Apply for an EEF stipend on something Nerves-related and build it. We can help if you have questions about this.
- Send corrections or improvements for documentation wherever it fails to help you.
- Write about Nerves, give talks about Nerves. Make videos about Nerves. It is all good.
Finally, if you have questions about the newsletter or want to suggest something you can simply respond to this email it will go directly to me, Lars, who edits this thing. Let me know what you think.
- Lars, Underjord.io
