Hi all,
Before I start posting on this forum it seemed like a nice idea to introduce myself.
My name is Wibo (51), I have a wife (48), I have a daughter (19) and I have a dog (9).
I have been in electronics since I was 10 and in programming since I was 14 (or earlier, I just can't remember when it really started). My first computer (1977) was a Tandy TRS80 with a Z80 and since then I have worked with so many CPU's and microcontrollers that I don't even want to make a list.
I won't be offended if someone calls me a nerd.
I started with basic (hated it, but didn't realize), tried assembly, had a short (3yr) relation with Turbo Pascal and then discovered C (This is where the DOS age starts to end), a colleague of mine encouraged me to explore C++ (Thanks Simon) and I did. (Forgot to mention prolog, smalltalk, cobol, fortran, postscript, etc)
I worked at
www.nikhef.nl for 10 years as an electronic engineer and I had some C++ experience. Developed a domotica system based on RS232 and 8051 architecture for my own home that was able to switch lights, monitor door/window sensors, monitor temperature, nothing configurable all hard coded and lots of assembly code.
The development of the domotica system took a lot of time and in 1995 a daughter was born. I changed jobs because of two reasons: reorganization and I just needed a better salary.
My domotica system was now officially dead, problem was, I didn't realize...
Changed jobs from electronics to software, worked 5 years on a C++ 3D Kitchen design program, worked 10 years as C++ programmer/C# programmer/library manager/IDE development manager/version control manager. Crisis came and I got fired.
In 2011 I started to work for a company that makes complex machines with servo and plc technology and I'm trying to provide a "Human Machine Interface" for those machines, with a nice team of very smart people, I still work there now.
Since my daughter is not a child anymore I decided to start working on my dream again, automate my home and build a heat boiler to use sunlight as an energy source.
It's 2012 now and I started to do research in all the new technology starting with the hardware. Reviewed a lot of microcontrollers, developer kits, developer boards, arduino came by, Gadgeteer came by, unstable development environments came by, very bad IP stack implementations came by. I realized I had a lot of work to do.
Suddenly there was something called the Raspberry Pi and I started to investigate what software was available for this cheap and small microcontroller board that was selling so well. Wow Debian, does this mean we have a reliable/stable IP stack? Check!
Then I wondered if there were any people that shared my ideas and maybe even shared code in open source. I was amazed by the overwhelming amount of domotica open source projects available.
I'm not alone anymore!
AgoControl
+ Lots of protocols, raspberry compatible
- C++ style is hardcore unix, code poorly documented, lot's of python and java, stability problems.
I never had it running, nor did I try to get the development environment in the air, next!
Domoticz
+ Lots of protocols, raspberry compatible, looking for C++ programmers
- Stability problems, performance problems, java, looking for C++ programmers and OMG they use basic
I never had it running, nor did I try to get the development environment in the air, next!
OpenHab
+ Lots of protocols, raspberry compatible, good project structure, highly object oriented, well written, well designed, well documented, coding guide lines, TCP binding, looking pretty good, active and helping community.
- Installing the dev environment was a disaster, but I got it working finally. Debugging didn't work for me under windows. I hate Eclipse and don't like java.
I had it running, I even had the dev environment running on windows and although I liked the approach very much, Eclipse pushed me to keep on searching, next!
HomeGenie
+C#, Italian, raspberry compatible, good project structure, highly object oriented, well written, well designed, well documented, coding guide lines, TCP binding, BUS sharing between multiple servers, looking pretty good, active and helping community, easy to install on windows, for me easy to get the dev environment running on win7 VS2010 (although there were a few flaws), can run as a windows service (with an Italian twist)
- Italian, less protocols then the competition, project seems to be carried by one man
I had it running, I could debug the code, VS2010 is my favorite dev platform, C# is my favorite language , this one is a candidate!
=============================
It's now December 2014, so I've been researching for 2 years now and bought some hardware I probably won't use ever again. Bought a Raspberry Pi B++ and started playing.
XBMC worked, all videos I used to have trouble with played well in full HD, that was a test case I just had to do.
Installing HomeGenie and get it running took 5 minutes from the point I had the image on SD.
Spent an evening finding all my old hardware stuff and set up a piece of wood with a breadboard and the raspberry. Studied the GPIO, read some stuff about configuring HomeGenie and got me a LED working on the raspberry and it could be operated from all (that's a lot) computer devices in my home. (Except for my Nokia E6
)
Well that's my introduction guys...
Higher goals in order of priority:
Find out on the way what HomeGenie, raspberry-sharp and mono can do for me and how I can contribute.
Get a lot of temperature sensors online to monitor my heat boiler.
Log temperatures on my fileserver (win8 pro).
View temperature logs real time either with my own written code or HomeGenie from multiple sensors in the same graph.
Start building heat boiler.
Technical goals in order of priority:
Find out if there's a good way to debug raspberry-sharp remotely from my Windows box using VS2010.
Already have a raspberry-sharp test program running on raspberry, it's displaying a temperature sample from Tmp102 every second.
Xamarin seems to have taken over remote debugging from mono and I have no intention to buy Xamarin.
MonoDebugger only supports vs2013.
What do you guys use for remote debugging?
Hope I can get some help speeding up the whole process, still struggling with some HomeGenie issues and I'm trying to avoid debugging HomeGenie because I want to focus on hardware right now.
Best regards,
Wibo.
