Discussion: v2 about convention

[marvinroger]

We should also provide some parsing tips for developers. Ideally, we could also implement a simple Web UI where we could create devices, nodes and properties and see the resulting MQTT messages, for reference.

[marvinroger]

@euphi @Kwave @ThomDietrich

[marvinroger]

Here's the WIP branch: https://github.com/marvinroger/homie/tree/redesign

What do you think?

[ThomDietrich]

A few small details I'd like to mention:

• "Homie convention" - should the "C" be capitalized as in a keyword or lowercase because "Homie" is the brand and convention is just an addition to clarify the topic?

• topic → "message" or topic ← "message" are neat ways to indicate communication direction. However I fear that the meaning is not always clear. Especially as it depends on the perspective of a user. The IoT device developer might want to publish the $nodes topic while a client developer wants to subscribe to these. Hence:

  IoT POV: homie/686f6d6965/$nodes ← "message"
  Client POV: homie/686f6d6965/$nodes → "message"

• I agree, we should give practical recommendations for developers of both worlds.

• We need one good example. I don't think "686f6d6965" is easy to comprehend and the LED example should rather be replaced by something related to the one example. How do you feel about discarding the weather station example. It has a few issues. Mostly numbers, no settable properties, it's boring 😄 Can you think of a good example. My coffee machine actually has almost everything we need (no array).

[marvinroger]

• I think "Homie Convention" is better, indeed

• Well, I we cannot cover both sides (a client and an IoT controller), because the document would be too heavy, right? It seems pretty obvious that if a device publishes to $nodes, a controller should instead subscribe to it.

• Definitely 😊

• I agree! What about a car?

Car
 - wheels node:
   - angle property (-45 to 45°)
 - engine node
   - speed property (0 to 50 km/h)
   - direction property (forward,backward)
- lights array node ([0-1] (0 front light, 1 back light)
   - intensity (0 to 100 %)
   - color (color, RGB)

This is obviously a simplified car (an engine cannot be set to "50km/h"), but I think it works pretty well.