lektor January & February 2021 99ger information to screens on whole sets of
trains. Solving this technical challenge and
finally walking through a driving train with
100 screens showing the departing trains at
the next station with real-time delays and
platform changes is very satisfying.
The flow needed to bring all this data
through unreliable wireless connections
(GSM signals aren’t really designed to handle
fast driving vehicles) is a real masterpiece of
which I’m very proud we could realize with
a small team. But I’m equally impressed by
the children at CoderDojo who manage to
make their first Flappy Bird game in Scratch
or blink a LED with Arduino!
200503-01Abate: Is there a programming language
that you don’t know that you plan to learn?
Any hardware you’re thinking of trying out?Delporte: Java is not only a programming
language, but also a virtual machine which
runs the Java code. On this same VM, you
can also run Scala, Kotlin and many other
languages. So still a lot to explore within
this world. For the Pi4J project, I want to
extend the example code and documenta-
tion website, so I will need to set up multiple
small hardware examples and learn a lot of
new stuff myself.Programming success
Abate: Let’s wrap up with your biggest
engineering- or programming-related
success. Is there a specific project (software
or hardware) that stands out? What was diffi-
cult about that project? What did you learn?Delporte: In my job at Televic, we use
a combination of Java and embedded
programming to connect multiple servers
and data sources to bring real-time passen-you combine Java with a Raspberry Pi and
electronic components.
The examples in my book use very cheap
parts like LEDs, buttons, LCD, LED number
display, etc., so you may already have these
available, or find them in any starter kit. All
the book examples can be used to combine
them to the project of your dreams. The
drumbooth controller I made for my son is
a combination of multiple of those examples
(Figure 4).
Abate: What has the feedback been so far?
Delporte: Although Python was the initial
language to be used on the Raspberry
Pi (yes, that’s where the Pi comes from)
and some still believe it’s the only right
choice, I got a lot of positive feedback
and questions on this topic. I even got the
chance to write a post for the Oracle Java
Magazine [12], which got a lot of readers
and shares! There is a clear interest in
this topic, and the future new generation
of Pi4J will make it even easier to build
powerful applications.
Java is not only a programming language,
but also a virtual machine which runs the Java code.
Frank DelporteRelated Product
> F. Delporte, Getting Started with
Java on the Raspberry Pi
http://www.elektor.com/19292[1] Getting Started with Java on the Raspberry Pi: http://www.elektor.com/getting-started-with-java-on-the-raspberry-pi
[2] WebTechie Blog: http://webtechie.be/
[3] “A Software Developer’s Space for DIY Projects and Writing”:
http://www.elektormagazine.com/news/electronics-workspace-software-developers-space
[4] CoderDojo: http://coderdojo.com/
[5] “Pong on a Raspberry Pi”: http://webtechie.be/post/2017-12-20-pong-on-a-raspberry-pi/
[6] “Getting Started with FXGL Game Development”: http://webtechie.be/post/2020-05-07-getting-started-with-fxgl/
[7] “Drumbooth Controller with Raspberry Pi and JavaFX”:
http://webtechie.be/post/2020-03-30-drumbooth-controller-with-java-javafx-raspberrypi-arduino/
[8] Quarkus: http://webtechie.be/post/2020-07-28-spring-versus-quarkus-rest-h2-db-on-raspberry-pi/
[9] WebTechie Articles: http://webtechie.be/articles/
[10] MagPi (Dutch): http://www.magpi.nl/
[11] MagPi (French): http://www.magpi.fr/
[12] “Getting Started with JavaFX on Raspberry Pi”: http://blogs.oracle.com/javamagazine/getting-started-with-javafx-on-raspberry-piWEB LINKS