Abstractions and IoT

With the click of a few buttons we can have a scalable website set up in minutes. By linking a few hardware components together we can make plants sing and coffee pots that tweet.

Abstraction

Over the years the abstraction level at which we can build our projects has been increasing. We are seeing this at the hardware level and the software level.

At the hardware level, we have composable boards that we can leverage to do heaving lifting such driving motors and providing GPS.

At the software level the abstractions are being provided in the libraries we use. For example, with SignalR we can provide real time capability to our applications with out having to worry about the protocols every device supports. Another exciting set of libraries that is enabling us to write complex asynchronous code simpler is ReactiveX.

Internet of Things (IoT)

There is a buzz in the air right now about the Internet of Things (IoT). It is on everyone’s minds and there is quite a bit of hype. Although tweeting coffee pots catches the media’s attention, there will be a lot more IoT devices that provide a lot of value.

Along with highly available internet access, smaller/faster devices and a host other energy and power saving advances, the abstractions that have been built over the years is one of the key components that is bringing around the IoT revolution. We don’t have to worry about how to communicate with GPS satellites or how to design a scalable infrastructure, it has been done for us.

As developers this is an exciting time. We have some amazing tools to work with and we get to focus on how to bring these abstractions together in new and exciting ways.

In what ways will you bring the powerful abstractions together?