I go way back with Unix -- 1971 to be exact -- so when I got into IoT, I started with Raspberry Pi/Linux. However, when I learned of the Particle Photon's "cloud" connection I switched to Photons for installed controllers. A Photon is a bigger faster Arduino. You program it in that same way: in C++, with the usual setup(), loop() development platform, and with little more OS than an Arduino. But what you have are these cloud primitives:
Publish(): Send a message to one or more other processors
Subscribe(): Receive published messages
Variable(): Request data from a processor (up to 200+ bytes returned)
Function(): Send a command to a processor
Typically, the above functions happen in under one second. Security is good. Pretty nice. Except for giving up async processes, cron, Python, etc.
So, a couple years ago I (and others, I assume) suggested to Particle that considering the huge installed base they should offer their cloud services to the Raspberry Pi community. I had in mind that the above 4 features would be available as background programs utilizing the usual Unix/Linus communicate-by-file metaphor (fifo files?). But no, Particle trotted out the tired old Arduino sketch development model that had to run as root. I complained. They didn't change it. Now they are giving it up. Too bad. I'd have been willing to pay a reasonable price for that service.
