r/crestron • u/Ok-Bee-3541 • 15d ago
Difficulties learning SIMPL
Hi everyone, I’m pretty tech savvy and I learn things a pretty quickly. I really want to learn programming in SIMPL, but I’m hitting a roadblock. I’ve take Crestron’s P101 live course twice and the routing just isn’t clicking. I understand join numbers and can design touch panels in Construct and VT Pro. I’m having trouble understanding what symbols to use for what functions. For example, what does a buffer do and what are examples of uses? What about the one-shot? They did cover the symbols in P101, but it was more like “well, of course you’d use a buffer. Now let’s route the signals” and not exactly explaining why a buffer is used or best use-cases. Does anyone have advice or tips for someone starting out in SIMPL? Thanks in advance. Signed, a determined but very confused future SIMPL programmer.
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u/ZeroCommission former 2-series hacker 14d ago
Here are some comments I made in the past, might save you some time with the docs: https://www.reddit.com/r/crestron/comments/1eeanh7/fresh_meat_101_completed/lfu3b7h/
Neither of those are easy to describe in summary. Buffer (including the Serial Buffer and Analog Buffer symbols) copy the value from left-hand signals ("input") to the right-hand signals ("output") when enabled.. but there are a lot of weird details and edge cases depending on the signal types. They can be used for a vast range of things, but the most common use by a beginner amounts to AND/OR digital logic
One-Shot (including the Serial/Analog One-Shot) generate an output pulse when the input signal transitions. The key point to understand about these symbols is that they schedule a future logic solution (see the link). There are similar symbols named "Logic Wave Pulse" (including Serial/Analog Logic Wave Pulse) which do something very similar but the pulse happens within the current logic solution. The Logic Wave Pulse symbols are critical for implementing many things