[ELECTRON] Arduino.

[Ben Dembroski]

I'm pretty lazy.

I've used a few flavours of the Arduino (Standard, Mega, Nano,
Freedunio, etc.) always programmed using the Arduino language.

I don't have a programming background, and Arduino is pretty easy to
pick up.  The documentation is pretty extensive, it benefits from a huge
and helpful user base, and it's FLOSS-y. Most of the people I've
collaborated with also have at least a fundamental working knowledge of
the things, which is always helpful. Not to mention that the people
behind the project are nice people and I like to support them.  Ticks
all the boxes for me!  Then again, I'm not a daily user of the stuff. I
probably use it maybe a dozen times a year when a project requires it.

HTH,
Ben


On Tue, 2010-11-30 at 15:02 +0000, Clive Mitchell wrote:
> I guess I should post something technical so that the politics don't
> start taking over the list.  :P
> 
> I started using microcontrollers pretty early on and learned to
> program in hex on a Heathkit computer.  Subsequently I embraced PIC
> microcontrollers before they even had flash memory (one time
> programmable and EPROM based) and when the programmers were restricted
> to just a few types of chip and still cost a lot despite being much
> cheaper than the $10,000+  "development"offerings from other
> manufacturers.
> 
> It follows that I've always been happy to bash out my code in
> assembler since I've used it from the beginning.  Now theoretically I
> could use PIC Basic or Flowcode or C and achieve results faster, but
> the downside is that it would take longer to sit down and start from
> the beginning again with a new language than it would to just bash out
> some assembly code.
> 
> There's also the issue of speed and code compactness.  I sell some RGB
> controller kits that use a humble 8-pin PIC12F629 microcontroller, but
> through devious programming still manages to ram in an 8 million bit
> randomiser, colour morphing routines and three channel pulse width
> modulation at a respectable 350Hz for full 8-bit 255 intensity per
> channel resolution.  I can do that in machine code (assembler) but
> would not be able to do a fraction of that with a compiled language.
> 
> However, I do realise that for some applications it would be useful to
> use an off-the-shelf system like an Arduino.  But which one?  What
> sort of modules are you guys using and what language are you
> programming them in?
> 
> 
>