Once again, Adafruit have reached out to the community to request feedback for CircuitPython 2020.
I haven't been intimately involved with CircuitPython this year, instead focussing more heavily on MicroPython. Still, it's been exciting to watch the community grown and the platform develop and evolve.
Before we look forward, we should look back; let's review my CircuitPython 2019 feedback...
Unfortunately it seems like the two dialects are heading down their own paths and, if anything, drifting further apart. BLE is a clear example; both languages now have rich libraries that are largely incompatible. I still think the communities would benefit from having more overlap but it appears to be a very difficult problem to solve.
displayio has been a hugely popular library and it's exciting to see what people have built with it. Kudos to the CircuitPython team for pulling this library together!
I haven't seen a lot of activity in this space; perhaps in 2020?
It seems like more of the guides are in written form rather than video which is great.
I do try to listen to the weekly community meetings - really happy that they come out as a podcast now! - but it can be tedious as they are pretty slow-going and are often over an hour. I know it's hard when there's community involvement but if they can be kept a little tighter I'm sure everyone would be happier.
The weekly Python on Hardware videos, also available as a podcast, are short and full of information. Great example of video content done right.
We've seen Adafruit settle on using Wifi Coprocessors - use an ESP32 over SPI to provide a network connection. It's a neat solution since it can be added to any micro that supports SPI (all of them!). The embedded engineer in me can't help but notice the waste that ESP32 is usually more powerful on it's own than the micro controlling it! In any case it's good to see more boards appearing with network connectivity.
No new small boards of note by Adafruit this year. Maybe it's just me that likes small boards.
Was cool to see the Fomu get a CircuitPython port but otherwise not a lot of activity in this space. I remain bullish on RISC-V and, to a lesser degree, FPGA's.
All of those notes continue to hold true; The CircuitPython community is a wonderful corner of the internet and Adafruit have done a tremendous job of fostering an excellent community.