On 7 November 2016 at 08:25, victor rajewski <askvictor@gmail.com> wrote:
My proposal is a Linux distribution that has the simplicity of micropython, but the power of full python. Drop a file (let's call it main.py) on an SD card from your laptop, plug it into the device, and it boots and runs that file straight away. Or drop an entire project. If the device has USB device capabilities, then just drag the file across, or even edit it live. Easy SSH setup could allow more advanced users remote development and debugging options. Maybe jupyter could be leveraged to provide other network-based dev options (pynq already has a working linux distro like this). Connecting to a console would give you a python prompt.
Ideally, key OS functions should be able to be controlled from within python, so that the user never has to leave the python prompt. For a start, things like network config, and possibly cron.
What do you think? I'm not in a state to do all of this myself, but could give it a start if there is interest in the concept.
A potentially simpler option to explore would be a derivative of an existing beginner-friendly Linux distro like Raspbian that configures xon.sh ( http://xon.sh/ ) as the default system shell and IPython as the default Python REPL. That still keeps a distinction between the system shell, the interactive Python shell, and normal Python application programming, but I think those are actually good distinctions to preserve, as "query and control the currently running machine", "perform ad hoc interactive IO and data manipulation" and "perform IO manipulation and user interaction repeatably for the benefit of other users" are genuinely different tasks, even though they have common needs when it comes to basic control flow constructs. Regards, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia