From 7e3bd0917a1cd6c84c938cb073934534c6d917e0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Alex McLain Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2024 22:10:44 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 1/2] Create introduction --- pages/index.md | 9 ++++++++- 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/pages/index.md b/pages/index.md index 4480dea..b374479 100644 --- a/pages/index.md +++ b/pages/index.md @@ -4,4 +4,11 @@ layout: home nav_order: 1 --- -The Redwire Labs guide for developing commercial products with [Nerves](https://nerves-project.org/). +This is a guide to developing commercial products with [Nerves](https://nerves-project.org/) +based on the lessons learned by the team at [Redwire Labs](https://www.redwirelabs.com/). +Product development can be a challenging journey, so we are sharing this +resource with the community so that you can avoid the pitfalls we have seen +and shortcut the path to success. + +*Redwire Labs is a product development agency that specializes in commercial +IoT products built with Nerves and Elixir.* From b7aac7fc3999d88db69330abfdfa8f0ec40a838d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Alex McLain Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2024 23:34:11 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 2/2] Add section on why we use Nerves --- pages/index.md | 32 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 32 insertions(+) diff --git a/pages/index.md b/pages/index.md index b374479..6541419 100644 --- a/pages/index.md +++ b/pages/index.md @@ -12,3 +12,35 @@ and shortcut the path to success. *Redwire Labs is a product development agency that specializes in commercial IoT products built with Nerves and Elixir.* + +## Why we use Nerves + +In our experience, Nerves has been an excellent technology that expedites the +development of connected products, and is built on a platform that supports +robustness and reliability. + +Nerves is the framework for running an [Elixir](https://elixir-lang.org/) +application on embedded Linux. It uses [Buildroot](http://buildroot.org/) to +create a custom Linux system that's tailored to your project and boots the +system into the application (as process 1), opposed to running a Linux distro, +which tends to be heavier weight and comes with extra cruft. Nerves also +provides facilities to update firmware in the field, and an A/B partition scheme +that allows for rolling back in the case of a failed firmware update. + +Elixir is used as the main application programming language. From a firmware +development perspective, this allows developers to reason about the system at a +higher level, avoiding the need to worry about things like memory management and +segmentation faults. However, developers still have the low-level tools they +need to interface with hardware, like bitwise operations. From the perspective +of developing a connected product, Elixir is a language that can be used for +both the firmware and backend server, making it easier for developers to +understand each side of the system. Our full stack engineers are even able to +develop features in vertical slices through the firmware and backend codebases. + +The [BEAM VM](https://www.erlang-solutions.com/blog/erlangs-virtual-machine-the-beam/) +runs the Elixir application, and is known for its use in developing low-latency, +distributed, and fault-tolerant systems. It also comes with [OTP](https://www.erlang.org/doc/), +which can be thought of as the standard library. OTP provides much more +functionality out of the box than most other languages, like [state machines](https://www.erlang.org/doc/man/gen_statem), +[directed graphs](https://www.erlang.org/doc/man/digraph), and [ETS tables](https://www.erlang.org/doc/man/ets) +(in-memory database).