Switching to Developer Focus

I have made the decision to switch the focus of Hempstick to developers. That is, the target audience is now the developers who use Hempstick to produce their own USB controller firmware.

What this means is that I will no longer try to “sell” Hempstick to the pit builders alike directly or other end users, nor will I publish any new information/data for individual users. Instead, I will only publish and explain information/data targeting developers. Which means, there will no longer be things like step-by-step instructions “teaching” end-users how to do this and that. There will also be no more new projects targeting end users, like how to convert a Cougar using Hempstick. I may choose to do such projects and publish them, but such thing will no longer be the “standard” of the documents.

It also means, I will not be browsing and answering questions nor trying to convince end users to use Hempstick on other forums, like EDForum, ViperPits etc. I find these forums exhausting.

Why am I making such change?

I have a day job, as a programmer (yes, the under hygiene, over paid kind) . I write OpenSource software because it’s fun to be doing something I have a passion about, not because I want to make money or make a name for myself. I wrote Hempstick in about 3 weeks (although I have been tinkering embedded platforms for years), and I find that all the existing controllers are simply inadequate for what I need in flight sims. What I need is a controller that I can extend and do more things other than just trivial functions like reading a bunch of buttons & ADCs. I want it to also control a lot of LEDs, reading MLX90363 Hall sensor, pulsing NeoPixels, controlling some small stepper motors, servos, air core gauges, etc. etc. None of the ones on the market or OpenSourced ones can do this. In other words, I want a platform that will let me tinker! I finished the first version of Hempstick in July 2013, but only released it in OpenSource in July 2014, one year later even though the GPL v.2 license notice was already pasted in the code in July 2013. But I found myself spending more than a month of my time trying to “sell/convince” pit builders that Hempstick is much better than their stupid Arduino-based controllers to no avail. Either I suck so much in selling/explaining it or the gap is too large to cross (I suspect it’s both). Either way, I find that very much “not fun” and aggravating. Dude, if I want to work on something not fun and aggravation, I have a day job for that and they pay me for it. I don’t “work” for aggravation. I either work for fun or I work for money!

I am here just for the fun of it. If it becomes a business, i.e. I start selling it either for money or no money at all, it’s work, not fun!

The existing documents, including the step-by-step instructions for dummies, will remain. But slowly, all the pages and documents, and forum posting will switch to developer focus. This does not mean that I don’t care about usability for the end users. I just prefer not to deal with them directly so I can concentrate my efforts on the core of the Hempstick, like support for new boards, new basic modules like support for MLX90363, NeoPixels, etc. I will create a new board on the forum for end user Q&A if necessary but I won’t read it and will prefer to let other developers deal with it.

Am I taking a high road and looking down on the end users? No. Dealing with end users directly is not something I do well. Let me go do something else I do well and enjoy doing!

Hempstick has potential to be used in controlling things other than a flight sim pit. For instance, somebody has the bright idea of using it in long range RC control by converting an off-the-shell joystick and output PWM/PPM, all without using a laptop. I’d rather spend my time supporting this kind of endeavor than trying to “educate” pit builders why their Arduino is a piece of shit and then they come back and decided to use Arduino because they are not willing to shell out a one time purchase of a USD $59 hardware debugger, or trying to argue with the so called Arduino “developers” why busy polling loop is so bad with which a real developer would cringe as soon as s/he hears “busy polling loop” without me having to explain anything.