[RANT] Arduino is made by spaghetti brains (not all italians are spaghetti brain - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 09:47:13 am
content: What the hell is wrong with these people designing the arduino ?I am trying to help out someone with making a shield for him. Here's the misery i run into.Arduino Due ,First problem : serial ports.in the schematic these are netnamed TX and RX for the port going to the rs232<> usbthe other three ports are NET- named TXD0 to TXD3.on the PCB ,- the port with net names TXD0 and RXD0 is labeled ... TX3 and RX3- the port with net names TXD1 and RXD1 is labeld ... TX2 and RX2- the port with net names TXD2 and TXD2 is labeled ... TX 1 and RX1and the port with netnames TXD3 and RXD3 is split between two different connectors and called AD14 and AD11 on pis and on the connector labeled 52 and A11There is not a single digital port that sits ordened on a byte aligned port. so you cannot do something like toggle 8 lines synchronously with each other. it is a mishmashi would assume that there would at least be a group that was aligned , lets say digital 1 to 8 on porta0 to porta7 so you could write to the io registers directly as opposed as having to futz with mashing individual bits to do something.Typical italian. spaghetti for brains.The schematics are junk, the layout is junkt , the netnames are junk and the libraries are junk. unbelievable.How on earth can you design something with this contraption ?

author: Maxlor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 10:37:42 am
content: Really not a a problem for typical arduino users. They'll be happy to toggle the pins one by one, and if some device can't handle that, someone else will have designed a shield to work around it.The whole thing really isn't about efficiency or performance. I mean, have you looked at what happens when you do digitalWrite()? It's ridiculously slow because they run the setup procedure for the pinevery single time.I still kinda like it though, their quick-and-dirty-factor is hard to beat, what with them being up and running in a minute or two.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 11:11:17 am
content: They have both a hardware and a software "legacy" to drag around for backwards compatibility. Like that stupid layout error in the original generation that created the half-spaced connector problem that prevents Arduino from playing nice with the ordinary grid-spaced world.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 01:29:16 pm
content: QuoteThat's your problem right there.Not theirs.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 02:13:12 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 11, 2015, 09:47:13 amAre you talking about the per pin functionality grouping of the AVR MCU? That was not determined in Italy.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 02:29:55 pm
content: The Due is an ARM device; obviously compromises had to be made to keep it both hardware and software compatible.Quote from: free_electron on January 11, 2015, 09:47:13 amI would imagine that the schematic names come from the chip's pin names, whereas the PCB names are made to match other Arduino devices.QuoteMust be one of the ARM/AVR compromises. On the AVR ones, digital pins 0-7 (one contiguous 8-pin header) are PD0-PD7, and none of them are reserved pins, so you can use the whole octet if you want.QuoteThis makes you sound like a dick.QuoteNo argument on 1 and 4. The Arduino crowd can't draw decent schematics and can't code their way out of a soggy paper bag. The layout is hardly horrible.

author: paulie
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 04:20:32 pm
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on January 11, 2015, 11:11:17 amIt's a popular misconception that was an error but in reality it was a crucial strategy to lock in a captive market. Similar to the totally queer pin numbering/naming schemes. If Massimo had chosen to emulate Atmel or PIC demo boards and used manufacturers pin and signal names there would have been no product differentiation and no massive(mo) profits. They were sitting pretty selling those $50-$60 dollar Duemanilove. At least until the Evil Empire started cranking them out for one tenth the price.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 05:00:48 pm
content: Quote from: DiligentMinds.com on January 11, 2015, 03:46:34 pminb4 "but Italian isn't a race!!", as if it makes one bloody bit of difference to the general notion.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 05:42:55 pm
content: Quote from: paulie on January 11, 2015, 04:20:32 pmAssuming you are kidding. If they had wanted "differentiation" and "massive profits" then they shouldn't have made it open-source.

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 07:16:45 pm
content: Some examples of Italian engineering:http://www.hdcarwallpapers.com/walls/oakley_design_ferrari_458_italia_2-wide.jpghttp://www.hdwallpapers.in/walls/2012_lamborghini_aventador_lp700_4-wide.jpghttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Internal_Pantheon_Light.JPG/1280px-Internal_Pantheon_Light.JPGhttp://ctwillms.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/st-peters-square.jpghttp://www.geocities.ws/gannclan6/ItalianHelicopter.jpgWhatever is in that spaghetti I'll have some.Ciao!!

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 07:56:41 pm
content: Himy name is Filippo, I'm an italian very soon to be EE, and I find your comment insulting, in 2 waysfirst for the morronic generalization, and secondly because you put all the italian engineers in tue same category as the arduino designers...I can quote countless examples of italian engineering at is best, i'll limit myself to 2, first galileo ferraris, (pretty old one) he discovered the rotating magnetic field at the core of induction motors, and the second one is Federico Faggin, the designer of the intel 4004 first micrprocessor ever...P.S. i find arduino the worst designed and managed project ever existed

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 08:05:00 pm
content: fine, i'll call em (the arduino designers) minestrone heads. soup made from very finely cut vegetables. It is meant to be insulting. this is a rant after all.Not all italian's are spaghetti brains. i've worked for years with very fine italian engineers. My employer was an italian company . so i know what i'm talking about. I'll water it down to "the arduino is made by spaghetti brains". SO to the italian engineers i've offended : sorry. not your fault. my bad.anywayMost of the stuff, like the header mechanical misalignment doesn't bother me.( not for this project )., even their quirky pin numbering on the connectors doesn't really bug me. simply trace em out to the cpu real pin numbers.We want to use the due because of the 3.3 volts and the io pins. we don't really need the horsepower but the 2560 is 5 volt only and the 1280 doesn't have enough memory. ( and on 3.3 can only run at 8 Mhz)so the due looks like a good idea. i know there is legacy but why couldn't they just route uart 3 to tdx3 and rxd3 . now it is spaghetti and the unknown is : do the libraries cross that over or not ? if i have an existing sketch talking to txd1 and rxd1 where will the signal appear ? at the connector pins labeled txd1 and rxd1 as per the original arduino spec , or on the pins labeled tx2 and rx1.. in short : do the libraries use the logical name or physical name ?as for the byte alignment : one thing we interface with is a number of chips that have an 8 bit databus. all i need is a 8 bit wide bus and a clock strobe so they can latch in data. ( there's an addresses decoder and some other stuff but that is inconsequential, the important is a fast 8 bit wide bus where i can stream data)it would have been nice to have at least a group of pins that sits on an uninterrupted byte boundary. like pc0 to pc7 or pc8 to pc15 so that i can plonk down a byte , toggle a single pin and repeat. now everytime i either need to upshift/downshift or split the data.And it is really hair-pulling : i would have been happy having for example PC8 to PC15 or PC16 to PC24. What do they ( they being the nitwits that designed the due) do ? they skip PC10 and 11 and they skip pc20 and pc27. (pc0 is the erase input, hellooo atmel? why didn't you make that a dedicated pin ?)so NONE of the banks on port c is uasble for byte wide operationsportD has a uart i need smack dab in the middle of the bank . and it's the same with all other port. there is either a peripheral smack in the middle, or one pin not routed on the board so you never have 8 consecutive io's on byte boundaries. that is just EVIL.anyway. i had a chat with the guy i'm doing this for and the long story short is : we will embed the sam directly on our board. no more shield. ( the shield was larger than the due anyway, and that way i can grab pc10 and pc11 and pc20 as well as pb0 to pb7 (it won't be arduino backward compatible in the sense you won't be able to run the sketch on a real due as you don't have access to those pins, but that too is not a problem. we won't have any shield connectors anyway. this is a closed box where you happen to be able to use the arduino development environment. It's a superset.So that will give me 3 8 bit wide ports on boundaries. he'll make a small library to us the PCB0 to7 and PC8 to PC23 and we're good. he can still use the arduino development environment ( i guess he wants to use a bunch of existing libraries for like CAN and bluetooth and ethernet ( we're using the wiznet chip as well ) to spee dup his development. anyway.It really feels like Every twist and turn is like they deliberately make it obfuscated.The arduino may be easy to use for novices but its bloody damn hard to build something slightly more advanced for it as it is 'dumbed down' so far that anything remotely useful ( like an 8 bit port aligned ) is gone.Makes me wonder what those TFT and lcd libraries look like. the way the ports are laid out they must do a massive amount of byte and word splitting to get the 16 bit data across ( for the tft's you need 16 consecutive bits ... there's not even 8 consecutive bits)it could have been much easier. instead of their own 'logical' numbering scheme they should have used the physical numbering.simply label the pins on the connector with the real port / peripheral name. then there would not have been the need for translation.digitalwrite (pa3,high). done. doesnt matter if you are on a uno or due. pa3 is pa3 , uart 2 is uart 2,anyway. rant over.how do you edit a title ? it should read  Arduino is made by spaghetti brains. -edit- found it.didn't want to offend all italian engineers. just the duino dudes. i was pissed at 2 am in the morning spending a whole day trying to make sense of that contraption.

author: mcinque
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 08:23:54 pm
content: italians!!

author: robrenz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 08:35:06 pm
content: Wow, I am glad there is some chance my brains are not spaghetti

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 08:43:23 pm
content: Quote from: mcinque on January 11, 2015, 08:23:54 pmItalians are not scary. Some of my best friends are italians, and engineers. And they know how to cook too ! (and how to layout a board, and how to write code ).The arduino on the other hand.... i've said enough.note : the offical due schematic contains N interesting sentence : PRIMA COSA DA TOGLIERE SE MANCA SPAZIO. first thing to go if we run out of space... on a little 4 pin connector. and right above that a bunch of wires going nowhere , there's even two that don't have anything on em , not even a net name ... who draws stuff like that ? Sigh. this thing is a mess.rant over.As for italian engineering.. maybe i should put my original claim back...http://www.thelocal.it/20150105/13m-sicilian-bridge-collapses-within-days-of-openingbrand new bridge in Italy, 2 days after opening... italian engineering...

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 08:53:47 pm
content: He's right, you know,at least about the schematic.(NSFL)This schematic is the stuff of nightmares. It's really irritating that the Arduino people cater to hobbyists, most of whom have quite a bit to learn, and offer them such complete shit as examples to learn from. Ifthisdoesn't give you nightmares, go read some of their truly horriblecode- but don't say I didn't warn you...These are people who think that the schematic entry tool is just a graphical way to poke at the netlist generator. In fact, most of thisisjust a graphical netlist.These are people who consider a diagram containingoverlapping textto be finished and suitable for public consumption.

author: firewalker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 09:02:55 pm
content: The vast majority of civil projects tend to fail due to contractors mistakes or decision s to cut the cost down. Not by bad engineering.Alexander.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 09:03:48 pm
content: here's a couple of eye-roll moments1 : a bunch of wires with only a netname on em , including two wires with not even a netname .... really ? can;t you clean that up . possibly a leftover from an idea where they wanted to provide the RMII interface to an ethernet connecotr but then realised : shit , we need a phy and magnetics too . .runaway , too complicated )2 : Level shifter ? LEVEL SHIFTER ? it's two resistors and two wires ,each with twice the same net name on em and two floating resistors going nowhere. my guess is they wanted to add the trick with the mosfets there but either forgot, or ran out of space on their board. clean that mess up guys !3: example of the shoddiness of the schematics. the dc connector is illogical , the diode sits half a mile off and the text overlaps wires. it aint that hard to drag the parts a bit so that it looks nice..

author: Kalvin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 09:09:36 pm
content: I understand your frustration, but not all open-source (or closed-source) projects are created by top-notch professionals, and some projects are completed in a hurry to meet the deadlines. Open-source projects are great because you can get the schematics and the source code (although not necessarily always top-notch design), make the improvements and modifications, and possibly even contribute back the improved design. With the closed-source design you typically are just stuck or have to do quite a bit of reverse-engineering etc. So ...

author: brabus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 09:18:31 pm
content: Nei manuali di Texas, Freescale, Microchip, etc. ho trovato un sacco di errori, ma non sono andato a sparare merda su un forum internazionale.Scrivi loro una mail quando ti passano le mestruazioni, magari hanno solo caricato i file sbagliati.Un pazzo ingegnere italiano.

author: paulie
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 09:20:36 pm
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on January 11, 2015, 05:42:55 pmFirst of all I didn't even bring up software. FYI Wiring was around long before arduino hit the scene.And as far as that goes there's open and then there's "open". Only a small fraction of customers take advantage of that. It's a popular trick to claim something is open but then make it very hard to DIY. Take Ardupilot for example. One of the biggest scams ever pretending to be open. Virtually impossible to build from scratch what with the non-essential circuit complication and not-so-open auxiliary dongle chip. I don't thing a single hobbyist managed to build one from scratch. And those off-the-shelf weren't cheap back then.I'm sure you have your own theories why they didn't quickly fix that goof on the next rev and why they chose that ridiculous naming fiasco over the far more straightforward Atmel.

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 09:28:39 pm
content: I think the ARM-based Due was designed by a different group of people than the original (AVR-based) Arduinos. While those do have their gotchas like the connector spacing idiocy, they tend to be sensible otherwise.And quality of the libraries - ehm ... I would say they are useful for quickly building a one-off hack or prototype, but for production stuff you will want to look elsewhere, both for performance and size reasons.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 09:39:02 pm
content: Quote from: brabus on January 11, 2015, 09:18:31 pmLOL menstruation ... ( at least that's what google makes off it)ANd they are not the wrong files. Those are the official arduino due schematics ...

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 09:53:45 pm
content: Quote from: brabus on January 11, 2015, 09:18:31 pmThe generalization that all women have a hormonal or chemical imbalance during their period is as bad as saying that all Italians engineers are the same.The problem at hand, Arduino, well... if free_electron can do a better design and keep it compatible, he should do it then and called it anTripleEno or EEEno.

author: LaserSteve
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 10:02:10 pm
content: Its not so open source either. In an emergency, I designed an Arduino into in a Government funded project to play a WAV file on command. Cost was an object, and we needed an emergency priority, disposable WAV player.Arduino + Wav shield was well within budget.The primary contractor asked their microcontroller consultant to see if he could streamline the code a bit, for some odd reason. Mr. Consultant went thru the Arduino code and called a hasty meeting. Despite my having written assurances from the creators of most of the modules used in the software that they used was open source, and that we could freely license and use it, Mr. Contractor found a few things that were not open source in both compiled code and in the WAV player.I got called on the carpet, and Mr. Consultant wraggled this into a gig for himself, rewriting the entire OS and WAV function. Set us back TWO months and scored him a major paycheck. He could quote "Not morally allow the project to go forward" unless all programmers were paid for all code.So beware of using Arduino in consumer projects. Some clown may run your code thru a parser looking for fragments and Win!.Consider an Ardunio a poorly laid out AVR or ARM prototyping board, at best.Steve

author: brabus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 10:06:23 pm
content: Quote from: miguelvp on January 11, 2015, 09:53:45 pmWho said "women"?

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 10:07:16 pm
content: Quote from: German_EE on January 11, 2015, 07:16:45 pmThat's a nice looking Fiat.

author: brabus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 10:11:48 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on January 11, 2015, 10:07:16 pmSorry?And BTW, what is wrong with FIAT?

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 10:14:14 pm
content: BTW For my undergraduate thesis I developed a Vehicle Control Unit for a Motorsport type application (formula SAE if anyone knows), it is doing some control stuff (TCS mostly and predisposed for ESP style horizontal dynamics control), along with some engine (variable intake manifold length) and other miscellaneous, and to have save a bunch of "Boring" work we used arduino due as the basis, on which we mounted our custom shield that provided power/protection and Outputs to drive all the motors and solenoids we needed...from my (terrible) experience I can tell you arduino (uno, due, or whatever) is the worst piece of garbage ever released on this world... where do I startfirst thing first they have used one of the biggest packages available 144TQFP (thank god the 200 something balls BGA requires an expensive board) and left a big number of pins unconnectedthan the schematics, or as more properly called a bunch of wires cobbled together to make some sense if someone is brave enough to try and decode that stuff,my favorite part is that some unconnected pins on the schematics are drawn going to a connector that doesn't even exist on the board,not even unpopulated(that's the bunch of wires going nowere, they must have updated the file)we have the "IDE", oh boy that thing, put plain and simple it's not an IDE it's just a BADLY DONE!!! text editor, they would have been better developing a plugin for some FOSS cross platform existing editor, the syntax highlighting is bad at best, text looks shitty and up until not long ago (i mean some month ago) it wasn't even anti-aliased (ok i'm not asking Crysis 3 level graphics, but at last the one that was around 20 years ago), no auto-completion, I can do away as probably most seasoned programmers, but for a beginner that is very helpful, and beside even for me is definitively a plus, the compile takes forever since the idiots, are compiling the whole run-time every fu***ng time, none of that libraries and precompiled headers bullshit, and this is ridiculous since a process that should take a couple of seconds takes ages (like more than half a minute on not so powerful machines), the source code is horrible with a lot of the processing is done in the GUI section (that's known to help responsiveness), the whole architecture is cobbled up, there is no notion of makefile (or something even remotely similar) the whole compiler setting thing is decided arbitrarily by the ide developers, and the whole source file processing (since you can't give a sckech to GCC) is done in hard coded way by the ide, like having an actual build system doing it was too difficult they had to roll their half-baked cobbled up solution, that does a tenth of the thing they ten times slower, the programming of the device is also shit it takes ages, because they had to do their own way (once again JTAG is good for the hole industry but not for them)and we arrive to the software stack , or libraries, or as they call them Arduino languagethis also is shit it's actually C++ used in C-like fashon, the API's are just random and they don't have any coherency, like PWM outputs, they are probably the simplest thing in the world to implement, you just don't, you use the hardware ones the manifacturer is giving you, but not arduino guys, no they did their own software versionthat is limited to 400 Hz for obvious reasons, and even more funny on the DUE they mixed soft and hard ones they do hard on pin that have it and soft on the other ones(like that's not going to confuse the s*it out of newbies), do we want to talk about CANBUS, they have some sort of library that's in pre-beta (like 2 years from Due's release date) and it sort of maybe works when the right wind is blowing and the stars are aligned correctly, it's ridiculous that the product has been out for so long and you don't even have a decent hardware abstraction layer ready for it, i'm not talking rocket science here...and finally the attitude, that's what bothers me the most, they have a software (IDE 1.5) that has been in beta stage for years, and worst still it's the only one that supports DUE and YUN boards, and the developement is continuing in parallel, for only god knows what reasons (they are actually backporting features from 1.5 to 1.0, that's utterly idiotic, just finish 1.5 already for christ sake)the libraries for the MCU and the IDE are mixed in the same repository (i recall reading on the mailing list not so long ago, that someone answered to the question why they couldn't be separated that they wouldn't be bothered commiting stuff in two places), and the thing that actually enrages me is that M. Banzi and his merry friends are not selling this board even cheaply, they charge you a fortune, like it was worth that, not in their best dreamthey are just ripping poor beginners off, really bad, like TI selling their launchpad TMS570 (herculess arm R4 automotive/mission critical/safety oriented MCU) ay a fraction of the cost of the due, bad, despite this being much more powerfull than the due's SAM3X8E, being automotive rated and certified, and having JTAG emulator on-board (not that shit of atmega serial/usb converter and bootloader fankestein monster thing), and i could go on... (and mind you i could go on giving you other examples from other manifacturers)...P.S.Quote from: brabus on January 11, 2015, 09:18:31 pmSui datasheet dei produttori (come in tutti il libri, aticoli ecc... tecnici e non), ci sono sempre dei refusi, ma tali sono, Arduino [inserisci cosa a caso] è proprio progettato di merda dall'inizio, leggi sopra, non si tratta di errori, si tratta di cattive decisioni manageriali portate avanti nel tempo, e visto che si fanno pagare profumatamente (almeno le schede) non possono lamentarsi...Open source non vuol dire che se è fatto bene allora va lodato ma se è fatto con i piedi allora si può scusare...quei file sono li da MESI non si sono nemmeno degnati di controllarlo, cioè ma seriamente quello schema è indifendibile, cioè e proprio disegnato male, può andare bene come prima bozza, ma come documentazione ufficiale di un progetto, non sta ne in cielo ne in terra, cazzo hanno venduto centinaia di migliaia di schede se non lo sai fare paga qualcuno capace, ci vuol mezz'oretta e un po di buona volontàTRANSLATION FOR NON-ITALIAN SPEAKERSOn manifacturers datasheets (as in books articles and alike, be them technical or not) there are always small errors and typos, but they are small and unintentional, Arduino [insert any product here] is just badly designed (ok I used stronger language in the italian version) here we have a long list of bad project guidance, and wrong decisions made by arduino top managers, the boards are not cheap either so not that they can complain about thatthat schematic has been unchanged like that for months, they weren't even bothered to check it, seriously that pice of gargbage is indefensible , it's badly drawn, It could be OK for a first draft but as official documentation for a FOSS/OHW project it's totally unacceptable, hell they are selling hundreds of thousands boards, if you are unable to properly draw a schematic, just pay someone to do that, it just takes half an hour and a bit of good will

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 10:17:45 pm
content: If it was not clear enough from my previous post for the thesis software I immediately went bare metal on the thing with a segger j-link and Atmel studio, ok i dont like visual studio and much prefer eclipse but compared to Arduino IDE just another world

author: brabus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 10:26:30 pm
content: filssavi,My comment was on free_electron's attitude, not on Arduino itself.Needless to say, we have the same opinion on the Ardu stuff.BTW, may I ask you in which University you joined the SAE formula? That's great!

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 10:39:06 pm
content: I'm currently studying in Parma, and that's obviously also the team i'm in...Now i'm working (finished layout, still few errors to catch and than of it goes to manufacturing) the second version of the Control Unit, I did away with the arduino and i've incorporated the MCU on board, and since i wanted some headroom for future expansion i went overboard and chosen the new TI delfino tms320F28377d DSP/MCU, it's a pretty powerfull beast, a dual core DSP, with two other mini cores (called CLA control lay accellerators) that can offload calculation intensive, latency critical tasks (like control loops) to be handled almost separately (they have DMA access to peripherals and all)...and the best thing is that my two thesis-advisors (both my friends) have experience with it so it's a match made in heaven

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 10:43:33 pm
content: QuoteAs much as I don't like arduino, I would like to point out that no other "garbage" from anyone anywhere has garnered remotely as much interest in the chips and mcus in general as this "worst piece of garbage".So if you think you can produce a better piece of "garbage" to beat the arduino, maybe you can show the world how it should be done?No? You aren't confident that you can do a better job than this "worst piece of garbage"? What does that say about YOU?

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 11:00:07 pm
content: Quote from: brabus on January 11, 2015, 10:11:48 pmFix It Again Tony ?

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 11:02:10 pm
content: In Spain we had SEAT which there were licensed models of FIAT, but yeah, not bad for FIAT to be able to absorb Ferrari.

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 11:02:59 pm
content: Well to be fair Arduino's fortune, and MCU rage started much earlier than Due's launch, and all the merit for arduino's glory go to the Uno version and previous boards, there they had a much less powerful chip and they were not much more than a bunch of nerds with a good idea (bring MCU's to the masses) and they deserve credit for that, but it's also fair to say that they were not ready for all the success the got and they could not handle the rapid growthSo the mcu used got better, bigger, and more powerful but their design mindset, and skills were not ready for the jump, so things that were fine with a little 8 bit avr with almost no memory are not fine any more when we talk about a 144 pin monster (compared to atmega168) clocked at 84 MHz whith half a meg of flash, it's like buying a ferrari supercar and then using it with dacia sandero's tyres, they work fine for dacia, but on the supercar they may not be the best choiceI hope for a change though, their last announced board (that's another thing that i don't like they announce publically boards many many moths before release) the arduino Zero is done in collaboration with atmel (read atmel did it) and it has EDBG (an atmel debug protocol) , native atmel studio support, and finally they did away with that god awfull atmega serial/usb abominationso let se what future will bring us

author: rob77
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 11:03:20 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 11, 2015, 09:03:48 pmthat diode... that's because of thermal expansionlike with pipes

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 11:03:46 pm
content: Quote from: brabus on January 11, 2015, 10:11:48 pmSorry?And BTW, what is wrong with FIAT?1 Ferrari is a Fiat brand.2 Wrong? Why wrong?

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 11:10:16 pm
content: I don't think that anyone was volunteering to design a learning platform. What I have heard in this thread is that the Arduino world is half-assed and passed off as a great way to learn how to do things poorly. I agree with pretty much all of that.I had three EE's (weak ones) that wanted to do everything in the Arduino world for real commercial projects. I was stunned by this, but then again I was the mechanical engineer (and a partner in the company). I watched failure after failure as they tried to make sense of the system. It got so bad, in fact, that I left the company/partnership and started studying to be an EE myself. I (all alone) have gone from Ohms law to multiple commercial releases of sophisticated multi-processor controlled products in less time than it took for 3 degreed engineers to make anything out of an Arduino. Why anyone would use that platform for commercial applications is beyond me.More to the original discussion - the strange and sloppy way they seem to go about things is killing a brilliant opportunity to take the "Maker" energy and create real makers - not hackers that guess their way through the process until it sort-of kind-of works. As I said, EE is fresh and new to me, but learning is not. EE is my third career and like most others spend a lot of time searching the internet to gain some intellectual ground. When I stumble across something that looks smart and useful I can spend hours, days, weeks, going down that path. If it turns out that I was learning the wrong way - it really, really stinks! Two of the engineers I mention above, were young and fresh out of school. They were logical slobs with very little capability in knowing how to break down a problem into solvable chunks. They would poke and hack at a project until something happened and call that progress. They are not dumb people, but I think they are to some extent victims of the same mentality I see in the Arduino world. I have always been a "Whatever it Takes" person, as opposed to a "Whatever Works".For me personally, this is all an opportunity to stay on top. As long as the masses stay in the hacker "make it barely work" mentality, I will always have an easy way to make a living.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 11:11:15 pm
content: Quote from: brabus on January 11, 2015, 10:26:30 pmMy attitude is a direct result form having to deal with that crapduino. I wanted to be nice and help someone to layout a shield and help him wire this thing up. i thought ok, couple of hours for schematic , couple of hours for layout. easy. i'm two days in and still unravelling the schematic spaghetti they made ! haven't placed a single part yet ... i just finished drawing the symbol for the SAM8 cpu with correct pin functions on it ...Grumpy doesn't quite cover it. pissed neither.. livid is more like it ...

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 11:11:50 pm
content: Quote from: brabus on January 11, 2015, 10:11:48 pmFor starters they need to hire someone who can write ECUs capable of both idling engines, and delivering power when you press the pedal.Oh, and they could put the engine in the right way round, too.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 11:25:25 pm
content: I love Arduinos, so easy to install the tool chain and hack my 3d printer, and the c++ compiler is first class.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 11:29:17 pm
content: QuoteBut it doesn't need to be the best choice (for all applications, or even any particular application).I would argue that the arduino model is better suited for a big / powerful / feature rich chip than a meager avr: it is designed for low learning hurdles and ease of use, simple applications that a newbie can get going quickly. This type of structure requires a rigid framework, fixed libraries that value portability over anything else... that means it is better done on a bigger chip than on the avr.I think this "ardino is crap because it can be improved upon" is an elitist thinking - if you really think your approach is better, put it out there and let the users decide.

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2015, 11:53:30 pm
content: Well since they already broke backward compatibility, form factor is the same of mega2560 but they are not level compatible, mega is 5V and due 3.3V only they first off should have mede them phisically incompatible (like all shields made before launch of 2 were 5 volt only so you risk smoking the chip) thet would have been better for beginners, and that is effectively been a big problem since everywhere there are big warnings not to mix and match stuffWith that sorted out (no need to be compatible) you can add another couple of pinheaders (or better stil make someone of the existing 2 row wide) an we can now brreak out all the available pins, the biggest complain i have is that the SAM3X8E has 3 timers each 3 channel wide, so you have in total 9 timers that are almost independent, for example if you need to capture 4 signals with vanilla unmodded due you have either to use external timer or use GPIO interrupts both ways is really ugly (do i really have to state why you would want 4 timers or more,secondly pwm outputs, as for now PWM is mostly done in software (which is orrible) and at the "PWM" header are routed some pwm headers, also there it's not complete, other true pwm outputs are scattered all around while at the header arrive also timers signal, having more pin they could have brought out the ethernet signals, i still wouldn't have put an ethernet phy and connector onboard but you could have the opportunity to have a proper ethernet shield with a simple phy chip, now they have to use a external MCU that's much more expensive (like 4$ vs 1$ on mouser) and it would almost certainly have gone faster (i wouldn't bet on that though)than since the software stack for the due is different i would have gotten rid of the atmega16u2 that's on board just to take space and i would have used the native usb also for programming ( ok there would have been the need for a bootloader that eventually does the update at startup, but since the due had a lot more flash than others that wouldn't have ben that big of a deal...and i'have been very conservative, the board would't have been significantly more expensive but it would have had a lot more features... ok current due does work (in the sense that it does power up and let the MCU do it's job) but between that and a good dev board it's a long shot

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 12:08:41 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 11, 2015, 11:29:17 pmwell i quite frankly disagree vith your vision, to flash a led, do some basic home automation (like control lights, central heating system aircon etc), and other simple project like that the atmega2560 is already more than enough maybe overkill, I don't think a begginner would want to get himself into things that needs the sort of power the chip DUE is using, also since it cost much more than other smaller boards (obviously) you pay for something that you can't fully utilize...if you are a beginner, an arduino uno (mega2560) is more than enough for you, obviously the Due is targetted at people that already have experience and needs the power it's much more expensive than the smaller boards so why spend more if you don't need it ( i don't accept the "I have it bigger" syndrome as a reason)i don't understand at what market Due is aimed, not the newbies since is expensive, and they are much more likely to buy a cheaper one, not at experienced users also because they will know the limitation and stay away from the thing, it could be aimed at mid level, at peoples with some skill but not at professional level, but since they are not stupid (well for the most part) they wwill quickly realize what a pice of garbage the DUE is (intended as bang for the buck) and they will stay away from you in the future...so if due is aimed at segregating prosumer and professional market away from arduino than it's really doing it's job, else it has failed

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 12:55:15 am
content: QuoteWhy not? What about people who just wanted to learn, or to move up, or for whatever reasons? What's wrong with their desire to capture that market?

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 12:58:33 am
content: Why mourn at free stuff? Why dont the one make similar in proper way as laid out. And be used by thousands and as reference ground in every reprap 3d printer on the planet. Arduino board is still my favourite mainly due to avrdude workflow. The spaghetty brain did this how ironic.

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 01:16:50 am
content: Quote from: robrenz on January 11, 2015, 08:35:06 pmMe, too, even though I have been married twice. Oh, and yes, I can cook also, and not just Italian.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 02:06:49 am
content: Quote from: Mechatrommer on January 12, 2015, 12:58:33 amThat is not the issue. the goal is not to make a new arduino or to make a clone. the goal was to build a shield. requirements : 3.3 volt , one or two 8 bit wide ports and readable and understandable documentation.That is what the gripe is about. The arduino due design is crippled due to some stupid decisions like leaving out a few pins. they could easily have made the connector a bit wider and added the pins.the schematics are a rats maze to follow , uart 1 is called txd3 uart 2 is called 4 and so on. it makes designing with this thing a bloody nightmare.anyway. moot point now . since we don't need compatibility with ANY shield those problems go away. the 8 bit port problem is also solved since we now have access to the pins they did not wire up. we'll simply create a custom function to perform byte wide ops .as i was picking apart the design there's other stupid things : they always use the hard reset which kills the rtc and backed data sections as well. so having a rtc crystal is useless , whenever you reset the clock is killed. they should have tied into the other reset pin ... the backup power is also hardwired. they should have inserted a diode so one can connect a coin cell for the rtc and novram section. in the usb power switch section there is mosfet that serves no purpose whatsoever as it is always on...These may look like tiny little details but it could have made the DUE so much more flexible and powerful.anyway , moot point now. we dropped the idea of using the duino+shield approach as the base duino is too much crippled for our purpose.i am only in charge for the hardware. someone else is doing software. they want duino 'ide' compatibility for their reasons. not at liberty to disclose why.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 03:55:51 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 12, 2015, 02:06:49 amThe Teensy 3.1 had Arduino IDE compatibility. Only catch is that if you use the design in your own PCB you need to pay royalties of ~$6.BTW, why did you tie your criticism of the product to the nationality of the designers?

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 06:29:12 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on January 12, 2015, 04:21:08 amsince when is 'italian' a race ?Since when is it not ok to jest about national sterotypes such as dutch cheesepeddlers, beer swilling krauts , the swiss with their lederhosen and cucoo clocks , the french for well ...being french, the scottish drunks (or as the late Robin Williams called them : the only people to use a dead cat as a musical instrument by putting a tube in its ass and blowing in it) , or the british stiff upper lips ?Since when does everything need to be politically correct ? What is this ? everyone a bit antsy these days ? (no i'm not going to say it but you know what i'm thinking about) I invoke freedom of speech. sheesh. call me a potatohead if you want. every country has its stereotype. arduino is italian. you add it up. Had i called them typical italian sauerkraut eaters ... that would not have worked.Let's all bombard free_electron cause he called some italians ( not all of em ) pastabrains. (i've worked for years amongst italians , you should listen to what they call each other ... i don't even dare write that here out of fear of being banned for life. Talk about a 'colorful' and 'expressive' language... They can describe in one word something that takes a whole sentence in other languages and you instantly can 'visualise' what their on about. Color, texture, smell , the whole shebang )

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 07:00:30 am
content: I rather have spaghetti brains anyways, since it will have more surface and therefore higher number of neural paths@free_electron, it's ok stll, but it's more fun to troll someone to cause back pedalling

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 07:16:32 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 12, 2015, 06:29:12 amIt doesn't have to, if it has substance.

author: ivaylo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 08:21:09 am
content: Ahem..., let me tell you about the Belgians...

author: Wytnucls
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 08:46:42 am
content: Careful now, or I hit you with my bag of soggy fries...

author: ivaylo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 09:05:00 am
content: You can only hit me with a beer.Can't even make a car, pfff...

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 10:41:14 am
content: Quote from: rx8pilot on January 11, 2015, 11:10:16 pmThat says more about your EEs being completely incompetent than anything at all about Arduino. Perhaps a wrong tool for the job, perhaps didn't do what you needed, but if your 3 EEs couldn't figure that out in time, I would say those "EEs" were idiots and that is hardly Arduino's fault.Bashing Arduino is a popular subject, but let's be fair here, shall we?

author: Maxlor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 10:42:54 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 12, 2015, 06:29:12 amThat is not ok, because both lederhosen and cuckoo clocks aren't at all Swiss(but Bavarian and Swabian respectively, in other words, German.) If you must make fun of us, do so by ripping about cheese, chocolate, crazy expensive precision watches, railways, finance or puncuality. Or our dislike of anything German.Quote from: free_electron on January 12, 2015, 06:29:12 amTotally agree. If political incorectness angers you, you're really in the wrong forum. Or watching the wrong video blog.

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 10:53:54 am
content: Quote from: Maxlor on January 12, 2015, 10:42:54 amThe problem here is not being politically correct, I couldn't care less if he ranted about arduino developers only, he could have gotten as fsr as he wanted with all The mafia, pizza and mandolino he culd put in a post, the problem was the generalized statent, abaut all italian engineering, now i know it wasn't in his intension but that wasnt clear at all at first...One thing is a politically incorrect joke, or something like that, i totally get that, one thing is insulting peoples (i repeat i get that he didnt want to do that and i totally excuse him, but that first post was insiltong period)

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 11:01:46 am
content: Quote from: janoc on January 12, 2015, 10:41:14 ami would say those were some smartengineers. Do something with little effort. Get paid.They are notlawyers, and licenses are not written in C. If they were they would be obvious, but they are vague on purpose. So you can have a (expensive) lawsuit over them.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 12:16:49 pm
content: -the problem was the generalized statent, abaut all italian engineering-Those statements may not be nice, or even ethical or moral, for anyone to make. But it is absolutely legal and more importantly essential for anyone to make, if a democracy is to survive.Free speech is just that, the freedom to express even offensive, unpleasant and unpopular views. Pretty much exactly what's going on in France now.

author: Pjotr
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 12:43:12 pm
content: We evaluated Arduino for rapid prototyping for a small robotics demonstrator. Within a week it was clear to us what is already said in this threadThe word "Arduino" is a no go at our lab. When needed to refer to it, it is pronounced as "I dunno"

author: mcinque
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 12:45:20 pm
content: I'm not a spark in EE; I've read the whole thread and if I understood well, technically speaking the Arduino EE design is a total crap, right?Well... they made a lot of money with that awful design, this gives me hope that I may make a lot of money too with my crap EE designs!

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 12:53:01 pm
content: This is started by an Italian. It is nothing like spaghetti at all.Well, to be fair it is a bit like good lasagna. Those Layers...http://www.chibios.org/dokuwiki/doku.php"I dunno" would be an accurate description of the average answer you'd get when asking platform details to such user.

author: Pjotr
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 12:53:18 pm
content: Quote from: mcinque on January 12, 2015, 12:45:20 pmWe have some experience with Fyra here too

author: mcinque
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 12:55:15 pm
content: Quote from: Pjotr on July 03, 1974, 06:05:19 pmFantastic. In a year or two I will probably be rich!!

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 02:10:47 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 12, 2015, 12:16:49 pmDannyf, you are correct and I agree with you regarding free speech. That same right of free speech allows me to call you out on something I find offensive.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 02:24:30 pm
content: Bah. I think it's Internet Rule #943 or something: Any time anybody criticizes anything, somebody has to come along and turn it into a matter of "free speech", as if it was ever suggested to prohibit the speech we didn't agree with.Dude, can you save the Don't Take My Speech for when someone's actually trying to?

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 02:25:31 pm
content: Quote from: Wytnucls on January 12, 2015, 08:46:42 amAs long as they come with mayonnaise. We dont want annything to do with ketchup !En ze moeten in ne puntzak zitten dedju ! Nie in zo een stom hollands bakske

author: paulie
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 02:32:49 pm
content: Quote from: Jeroen3 on January 12, 2015, 11:01:46 amIf you were familiar with the history you'd know they wereARTISTSandMUSICIANS.(Artists... can't live with 'em... can't shoot 'em. Well you could but then no Arduino to whine about.)

author: Pjotr
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 02:36:26 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 12, 2015, 02:25:31 pm"Belgische puntzakken" is whole story by its own, that is far beyond the scope of this threadAnyway, Italians love Dutch chips (""Friet""):https://leavventureculinariedipuokemed.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/patatineria-chip-star/

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 02:40:08 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 11, 2015, 08:05:00 pmThanks God it is, so my new TV and router will not have that crap in them.

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 05:26:18 pm
content: Quote from: janoc on January 12, 2015, 10:41:14 amThe whole point was to show the incompetence of the engineers (I did not hire or manage them). My frustration was that they (and many of the ones interviewed) coming fresh out of school have the Arduino hacker mentality and education. On one hand, I see Arduino as a great way to dabble and get newcomers interested in engineering and design. There are some really great reasons and results of Arduino. My earlier point was parallel with the OP in that, in my opinion, teaches poor skills and makes the user think they have accomplished more than they have. This simply leads to a steady stream of EE graduates that are weak. Is it all Arduino's fault? Of course not, but in my case is was a dominant failure of concept. They were so convinced that Arduino could solve anything (they were taught that in school) and the Arduino philosophy is to learn as little as possible to get something done. In the real world, I feel that never works. I tend to over learn so that I have a firm understanding of what my options and limitations are and can easily choose a reasonable path. It's not unlike having a 500Mhz scope to measure 500Mhz signals - probably best to have a 1Ghz scope.A teaching tool that teaches the subject poorly is my complaint which seems to mirror the OP's rant. Arduino teaches hacking skills, not engineering skills.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 05:52:49 pm
content: I have played with microprocessors and microcontrollers for years (even built myself a fully functional z80 CPM machine, from scratch, design, wire wrap, bios customizations, etc) but Arduino is the best thing since sliced bread. An easy to install standard tool chain, tons of peripherals, active community, gazilions of examples and drivers, and dirt cheap products (e.g. a $4 Arduino Pro Mini shipped to my home from China). I also have two Arduinos embedded in my car that make it more to my liking and one in my 3d printer. Life is great.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 05:57:14 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 12, 2015, 02:25:31 pm+1 for Mayo! Now, add lots of salt! After all, if you are going to add to your waistline with lots of carbs and add cholesterol to your system with the mayo, you must drive your blood pressure up at the same time!SWMBO likes to use mayo and ketchup, it really isn't that bad. I don't understand why people look funny at you for mayo on your fries while they eat potato salad with mayo in it

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 06:16:14 pm
content: I like sweet chilli sauce on my chips. Or some nice jalepeno sauce. Often Worcestershire sauce, though that stopped with the reformulation to suit the US market.

author: jancumps
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 06:30:42 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 12, 2015, 02:25:31 pmWhere is the Like button when you need it...

author: Dajgoro
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 06:31:23 pm
content: This topic is hilarious!I am not a big fan of arduinos either.I don't like the ideas of having a separate board plugged in my project, I like having my projects built by a single pcb with no addons. I don't like devices that have an entire arduino boards strapped on them, and yes, such projects do exist, I saw some at the maker fare in Trieste.As for the sw side, i stumbled across some crazy nonsense there too, but i thing that would deserve an entire other topic.The only place I would now use an arduino is if I need something done fast, just because I know I'll find a library for any device in existence, and that it will work in some way, even if it meant I'll have a bit of trauma (and I usually do).For starters is a very nice way to cheat, you have everything done, everything works out of the box.Thing is that starters usually go and read the manual before touching the thing, and when I want to use something I just assume it is done in some classical way, just to spend hours before I discover that some shield was not designed how I imagined at all.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 06:58:03 pm
content: Quote from: Dajgoro on January 12, 2015, 06:31:23 pmYou are not alone. That's why people design their own PCBs with Arduino IDE compatibility. That's the beauty of the Arduino open source platform, the ability to mix and derive and still benefit from the eco system. If I understood correctly, this is also Free Electron's current approach.

author: diyaudio
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 07:02:35 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 11, 2015, 09:47:13 amThe Arduino ecosystem keeps my quadcopter in the air, ever seen the codebase for the arducopter flight computer ? its pretty darn impressive.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 08:26:50 pm
content: Quote from: Dajgoro on January 12, 2015, 06:31:23 pmyou came late to the party... one of the "devices" uses melzi board, it has everything needed onboard such as servo drivers, heater circuit everything. reprogramming it is 100% avrdude way identical to the hated arduino. take a bare atmega chip, burn the bootloader in, use avrstudio if you hate "arduino the ide" thats it. no need software license per seat annual subscription crap, not even a programmer.

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2015, 09:36:57 pm
content: Quote from: rx8pilot on January 12, 2015, 05:26:18 pmThat's just BS, sorry. That's like blaming a hammer because someone smashed their thumb with it - "the hammer teaches smashing skills, not hammering skills!". See the problem? It is not the hammer that made the mess, but the guy holding it!Your guys would have been even worse with some "real" tool - if they had even graduated and got employed in the first place. If someone cannot figure out how to make things work with the Arduino hardware, which is really primitive and relatively well documented or doesn't see when that hardware may not be up to the task, they probably wouldn't have been able to handle anything else neither.They were incompetent and not because of the Arduino, full stop. I don't think that their entire EE education consisted of "Arduino hacking", did it? And if it did, why did you (or your boss) hire them?? I don't think there is a shortage of unemployed EEs around (but maybe they wouldn't work for a pittance that a fresh grad would!)Really mind-boggling logic

author: ConnorGames
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 04:41:22 am
content: This isn't an arduino -- just a derivitive -- but the layout is hilariously awefull. The "decoupling" caps on the AVR and Stepper Drivers are just the start... (Yes, this is a single sided load)From the troubleshooting sectionQuoteI wonder why... Certainly has nothing to do with the lack of isolation or proper layout!Yes, I do use one to control my 3D printer, and it usually works. But this is not an excuse for lousy engineering.RepRapPro does make great 3D printer kits of the cost though, I love my Huxley!

author: LukeW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 05:58:35 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 11, 2015, 09:03:48 pmI agree that the schematics are a terrible mess... irrespective of whether or not the design is good. But I've seen other people draw up shocking schematics before, not just Arduino.Quote from: zapta on January 12, 2015, 05:52:49 pmThe Italian folks would probably be outraged by that statement, insist that you can't call such a thing an Arduino, and send the lawyers around because you're violating their trademark.

author: IanJ
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 07:18:54 am
content: Hi,Back in the day I designed (hardware) many Z80 & 8051 based Oil & Gas products and when I moved away from EE for a living I got back into it as a hobby years later. I found the Arduino and have been having a ball ever since. To name a few:-- Home made Segway - Arduino Nano- Home built Bench PSU c/w graphical LCD's - Arduino with embedded Atmel 328P straight onto the pcb- Home made RC Joystick - 2off versions, Arduino Nano & Mega- Home built guitar amplifier control pedal - Arduino Mega- Modified EDC Precision Voltage Reference by adding an LCD and much easier method to dial up the output voltage - Arduino Nano- Modified Power amp by adding a motorized volume pot and remote control - Arduino NanoThe major plus point for me is the world of libraries I can call upon to help me. I'm not a software engineer by any means, and without the Arduino ECO system I would have found it a lot harder if not impossible for me to successfully complete the above projects.....certainly as hobby time!It's not the Arduino system that is to blame for the rants that many pro EE guys seems have with it..........it's those pro EE guys themselves for not realizing Arduino's place in the electronics market. Arduino has never replaced any uP & uC products, it has simply offered a ways for the less knowledgeable to get something up & running without the learning curve.Anyone that thinks the Arduino is crap and should never have existed then you are denying me from having fun designing & building all my fun projects. To that I take exception.............Ian.

author: ivaylo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 08:18:35 am
content: Thank you Ian, couldn't be said better...

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 08:38:15 am
content: Quote from: LukeW on January 13, 2015, 05:58:35 amI am not sure it's so. They seem to protect the logo but not the arduino name, especially for clones which are 100% compatible, in this case to the Sparkfun's Arduino Pro Mini.http://blog.arduino.cc/2013/07/10/send-in-the-clones/Those open source companies are very careful not to upset the community by suing people.

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 09:30:17 am
content: Quote from: IanJ on January 13, 2015, 07:18:54 amNo one is denying you to have fun but Arduino environentand due board in particular are a utter file of garbage they ha e tons and tons of defects, and evwn worse the Arduino team is perfextly conscious of that, they know their ide is crap, its buggy as hell (geez 1.5.6 was giving me kernel panic on OSX), but they prefer to keep adding new buggy incomplete features rather than making the existing work, and they keep on launching new boards even when the exixting ones are not yet fully supported (for example they have announced tre and zero boards and due doesn't eve have an official timer library)As somwone else said the only merit to the arduino guys was being in the right place at the right time, as there was a need for that product, if they never existed someone would have done the same thingI get that it's meant for hobbist and bot professionals, but that doesn't meen that it is less of a crappy poor designif a product is aimed at hobbists (and DUE is not...) it may have less features, ot be less performing, but that's it

author: Dajgoro
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 10:53:33 am
content: Quote from: Mechatrommer on January 12, 2015, 08:26:50 pmI did that once for a project, but that is not the same as having a discrete arduino board plugged on the main pcb.

author: Pjotr
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 11:03:22 am
content: Quote from: janoc on January 12, 2015, 09:36:57 pmYou are right. The Arduino thing is quick-and-ditrty crap. Mastering such a piece of crap is a proof of competenceBut as an educational tool, learning young and naive starting people the habit of the quick-and-dirty approach instead of proper top-down design, is a no go. I work in the business to business area and have to deal with such youngsters. Apart from their quick and dirty habits they have a diploma. And that diploma give some the idea they know all.I don't complain. Dealing with the guys is fun after all

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 12:23:48 pm
content: QuoteWhat's the point of having a great design without a user?Good designs have no value if noone is using it. Arduino, for its crappy design, has had more users than any embedded ecosystem has ever attracted.If you come up with a crappier design with more users, you would be my hero.

author: Pjotr
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 12:32:32 pm
content: Same holds for hamburgers, especially the big triple ones

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 01:33:42 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 13, 2015, 12:23:48 pmWhat you are saying is that if something has a bigger market, it holds more value? Well chinese crappy powerbricks and usb chargers are much much better than properly designed ones that aren't trying to kill you when you plug them...I may have a wrong mindset, but when i design something i try to do it at the best of my ability and budget, that doesn't mean going after perfection (that of course don't exist) but neither it mean not even tryingArduino is in my opinion one of the many causes of the problem dave expressed in his job interviews EEVBlab video,since it teaches you to do things in a half assed way, and it doesn't encourage you to digg deeper

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 01:40:02 pm
content: Quotethan a superbly designed equivalent that no one uses.Quotenot if that properly designed ones cost you an arm and a leg to buy.QuoteThen show all of us how your properly designed Arduino would function and beat those italians.Anything else is moot.

author: Kalvin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 01:43:16 pm
content: I think the Arduino hardware, software and the shields as equivalent to the solderless breadboarding or strip board design: It is very usable as a quick proof of concept and/or quick hacks, but it is not suitable for every situation either. Likewise, if someone wants to use a design created on a solderless breadboard or strip board for a basis of a professional design or product and run into problems, I would call that as bad design choice - it has nothing to do with Arduino per se. However, as many people here has pointed out, even quite complex designs have been implemented using Arduino and the shields.

author: retrolefty
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 02:21:58 pm
content: QuoteNone of that is the fault of the original Arduino design/product. The simple AVR 328P based board was designed for the hobbyist/artist market as a fully hardware and software open source project. It gave a hobbyist a very large upgrade from then popular Basic Stamp board that mostly served that market prior to Arduino.Most of the "Arduino hate" comments I read seem to be of an elitist priesthood nature. The Arduino was not designed as a EE college level entry system, it was designed for a much larger and less 'exclusive' user base.If an artist wishes to add some complex patterned LEDs to his/her latest creation in a quick and affordable manner what other product would be a better choice then the original Arduino AVR 328P based design? How much learning curve time will have to be invested to get to the end product?I will state that IMO the original Arduino 328P based design/product is simply the most successful and largest open source hardware/software product to market to date.My main Arduino complaint is around many of their follow on products (ARM based boards, wireless shields, etc) have spread them too thin and spreads them across a larger/different user base and the quality and simplicity of the original concept has suffered.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 02:35:48 pm
content: QuoteAbsolutely.The discussion is reflective of engineer's tunnel vision: the tendency for engineers to judge a product on its engineering solely or primarily. Thus, a product with engineering flaws like the Arduino is a shitty product under this criteria.Those people need to stay back and ask themselves: what is a product designed for? To solve problems for someone. As long as a product has delivered that to its customers - and Arduino has done that for many many customers, it is a good product, a useful product.Between a useful product and a properly designed product, I pick a useful product any time of the day.Having said that, I would agree that the Arduino is poorly engineered. But that doesn't diminish its vast usefulness.

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 02:50:10 pm
content: Quote from: retrolefty on January 13, 2015, 02:21:58 pmYou are totally correct, by the hardware point of view, in fact all the criticism here was about the DUE, but thats normal since that is the flagship a n d most expensivr product it should be also the best, but the thing is that it's the worst of all...But speaking of software the IDE has is a complete and total faliure, it's really disfunctional, it lacks really basic things that a beginnes would have benefitted a lot, autocomplete with language/libraries reference built in, a sane form of debugging, it doesn't need to be fancy just highlight the executing row and show variable value (at mouseover for example), the text editor is barely functional...and the list could go on and on, it may have been fine for the first few boards but now they are selling hundreds of thousands oof boards,size is not a problem any more, and dont bring up the hobbist stuff i am sure a hobvist would scream of joy having a debugger....And it's not a problem of tunnel vision, at least not for me, it's that arduino is used wildly as a teaching platform and for the forst contact with MCU programming, and the quick and dirty hack skillset is the worst thing you could teach at first, and dont get me wrong, in engineering it's a vital skill to have, but it should not be learned before good practices since it leads to cutting corners, and thats never a good thing

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 03:12:12 pm
content: QuoteI am still a newbie so I know quite well my lack of needs that you seem to think every newbie needs desparately.Sure the IDE is not the best -> it shouldn't be. It is free, and it is utilitarian, but most importantly, it gets the job done without much learning upfront on the part of its user - if you have a half functioning brain, you can get it to work.I would say that it excels in that department.As to those fancy features you so desire as a newbie, well, you can always use them in conjunction with the Arduino IDE, and many of the $$$ pro IDEs don't offer those features you can find in dedicated editors / code parsers either.You have to remember, like the hardware, Arduino software is designed to shield the users (newbies like myself) from the details of a mcu. The simplicity you so complain about is the price you pay AND the reward you get for using it in a "half-assed" way. It is meant to get you interested and if you are still interested and want more, you should move on from it.Kind of like your parent's house - it was great to live in when you were an infant. By the time you are 30 and you are still living in your parents' house, it is creepy. But the fact it is creepy now doesn't mean it wasn't great when you were a little.The same holds for Arduino: it is natural that you find it unsatisfying now. It is time for you to graduate to something more real. and that's not the fault of Arduino. It is a sign of your maturity.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 04:25:43 pm
content: Quote from: filssavi on January 13, 2015, 02:50:10 pmFlagship? It doesn't even listed in the board list of the standard Arduino IDE.Quote from: filssavi on January 13, 2015, 02:50:10 pmFailure? This IDE has a very wide adoption so maybe those features that you consider essential aren't. Arduino has an Eclipse plugin but it has very little adoption.I don't understand why people are bitching about Arduino. Don't like it? Then don't use it. You are free to choose and so are other people. It's that simple. Life is good.

author: Pjotr
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 05:59:55 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on January 13, 2015, 04:25:43 pmTrue and you need to be informed right to choose right. It's that simple too. Especially when time is on a budget.

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 06:45:49 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on January 13, 2015, 04:25:43 pmWell first of all let's define flagship...Quote from wikipediaQuoteso arduino due is by far the highest profile (until TRE will be out) and most expensive product, so the fact that IDE 1.0 don't support it is secondarysecondly maybe you don't know enough arduino world but DUE along with YUN are supported by IDE 1.5 branch, the fact that it has been in beta for almost 2 years just confirms how shitty arduino software stack isQuote from: zapta on January 13, 2015, 04:25:43 pmFirst of all eclipse plugin has little adoption because it's a massive pain in the ass install and configure and the documentation is scarce at bestsecond can you name a reason why debugging support is not essential, so why in every introductory programming class IN THIS FUCKING WORLD a debugger is used, they must be all stupid since it's not essential, hell now that i think about it the compiler is not essential either, you can conveniently compile the code by hand, so beginners will not have to learn how to press a button, and hell what's going on with all this printf() and serial monitor, it's way simpler to just bit-bang GPIO's and interpret the result with LEDslet's stop being silly here you can't possibly tell me that for a complete beginner (never wrote a line of code in his whole life) it's easier to scatter printf calls all over the place and try to time accurately the thing so that the serial monitor doesn't go apeshit, than just hitting debug button, press forward until they reached the line of interest and place the mouse over (or click) on the variable they want...auto-complete could be left out, yet i think that it would benefit a lot peoples not knowing the libraries well since when you press the dot button it shows you all the method that can be calleddocumentation in IDE is another no-brainer since now beginner will be constantly switching between a browser and IDE searching for a method and then writing the code down it's like you are not introducing any extra step in the process, in fact it's the opposite since all the documentation would be accessible in one place there would not be the need to search the for library producer site and then in that search where the documentation is...another thing really neat for beginners would be a library repository (a la pypi) accessible from ide with single click install, actually that was said to be worked on by Massimo Banzi himself on the Arduino Developer google group mailing list, but then nothing happened...EDIT here is the link that backs up with hard evidence my claim abovehttps://groups.google.com/a/arduino.cc/d/msg/developers/CuBx22eFl2c/7FqfdwrL60gJit is from last may so more than 6 months have passed and no library manager yet...you know why arduino users are not under Banzi house with pitchforks asking for all those features? because most of them have never programmed before and don't know about the existence of debuggers, autocomplete and all this good stuff (thank's arduino IDE) so they think that doing what they are doing now is the best they can get...If you ask an amazonian tribe they will tell you that the best weapon for hunting is bow and arrow ( or something like that) not because bow and arrow is more effective or simpler to use than a rifle, it's just that they don't know what a rifle is...

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 07:21:55 pm
content: QuoteBecause it is not essential? People have been debugging code, and will continue to debug their code, without any debug support for quite sometime now.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 08:35:25 pm
content: Quote from: filssavi on January 13, 2015, 06:45:49 pmI see your point, the Arduino IDE is too limited to make the Arduino eco system successful. ;-)It's this dogmatic approach that kills many products. The Arduino designers shown us that a minimalist design can trigger a revolution and bring MCUs and C/C++ to the masses.BTW, I am writing software professionally and almost never use a debugger.

author: Pjotr
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 09:11:06 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on January 13, 2015, 08:35:25 pm+1And I design lots of digital HW professionally and never use a logic analyser.Thinking twice on forehand and working structured saves you lots of debugging time. In the end the job is done in half the time. It is just that with Arduino you learn the other way around.

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 09:19:35 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on January 13, 2015, 08:35:25 pmI may not have explained myself fully this time ( but if you read back the previous post i have already said that more than a time), I'm not criticizing arduino concept, or history I think they have been a huge succes story, the UNO and Mega were good products that served their market...I am criticizing the situation as it is right now, they are doing good on the money side (or at least the sales are good and provided that there are no criminal type of schemes at play they are doing good) and yet they have lots of problems they seem not to care about, all they are doing is new boards, they have announced 2 (not out yet) and the last ones they got out DUE and YUN are not yet fully supported by the IDE, the software expecially the 1.5 branch is still buggy, and even on the official forum discussion people have been complaining asking the company to stop working at new features and spend some time doing cleanup work and bugfixing, they are aware that the IDE architecture is crap (and i dare you to call it otherwise, they have code doing actual processing intermixed with gui stuff), they are finally starting to work on that, the milestone is for the next release 1.6 to finally discontinue 1.0 and use the curent beta branch, for that time the code will be refactored leading to a modular architecture, there is a guy working on autocomplete and documentation and the arduino team is following his developements closely and probably when it will be good enough will be merged into main tree,http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=153592.705here you can see what i'm talking about, (it's in italian since almost alld eveloper are italians)so I'm not being dogmatic, i'm just seeing a bunch of cool guys with a great idea, that weren't unprepared for the massive and sudden succes and they have tried to overdo resulting in a situation where the bar of expectation has been obviously raised (they released DUE and it is clearly not targeted to absolute beginners) but the quality of the work hasn't, they are catching up though it seems, and that's a thing that fills me with joy since i would hate if arduino went crashing down, since now that they are at their apex it's really too simple to sit on the past glories or take a bit to big to chew...

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 09:27:17 pm
content: Quote from: Pjotr on January 13, 2015, 09:11:06 pmgood design before acting is of course critical, but there are things that are impossible to do just with your brain, bus timing issues caused by emi or interference from nearby without the right instuments (oscilloscope and logic analizer),by saying "a professional should never use a debugger" or "you're not a good designer if you use a Debugger is indeed dogmatic and idiotic, obviuosly a debugger can't save you from a poor algorithm's choice or sloppy coding, but there are times where a debugger is usefull, (by the way using printf() to show the registers or variable content is just the same as using a debugger just slower since you have to instrument your code)

author: Pjotr
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 09:37:40 pm
content: I didn't say I don't need to debug. But working structurally and test your structures on it's own seems to be a lost art. It takes more time writing test routines in the beginning but saves lots of time afterwards.

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 09:49:01 pm
content: Quote from: Pjotr on January 13, 2015, 09:37:40 pmOk I may agree with you ( in reality I am totaly with you on this one) but I think that arduino may not be the place for test driven development and/or unit testing, mostly because (correct me if i'm wrong though) you have no control over the compilation and linking of the code, and beside that arduino is meant for casual users, that are not programmers and quick hacks as many many people in this thread told and i don't see anyone of them wanting to sit trough the pain of writing good tests (that's an art in itself) and planning ahead of time the structure of the code they will be writing, most of them will start coding right away even with little or no idea of what will be the working of the program/firmware

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2015, 11:34:38 pm
content: if you program and you dont need a debugger. its an indication that your program is not complex enough to need a debugger. say anything otherwise, its moot to me. a logic analyzer or dso is a debugger, not just what you found in the ide, dont be to narrow minded. one dont need a debugger when they only rely on their brain to debug. but then, it needs to be debugged isnt it? one way or another.i like to see arduino in broader view. anything that used avrdude "toolchain" is arduino, or arduino derivative. esp if arduino the ide support it or can be made to support it. not a nitpickers view that this board is only arduino, that board is not. i have mega, uno and mini. which one is the arduino? the others are not?granted there are some flaws in the implementation of arduino the pcb and arduino the ide. but the conceptual idea is different thing from lousy people that implemented it. it just so happen arduino idea is implemented by "lousy" people. but then, lousy is not the right term, imho the right term is "less educated" or they didnt go to university for proper education. but instead of mourning and take a step backward, why not joining in and make helpful effort to correct the mistakes?part of the reason of mourning is there expect arduino to be used in professional and specialized field which is not its intention. as other said, dont like it? dont use it. some even say it is useless. no, it is useless to you, but it is not for others. the content in internet tells the story. why dont we just mourn on primary teachers teaching with toys and simple 1+1 to students and say its useless?bigname like TI tried to chase arduino from behind with there lauchpad "flagship"http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Getting_Started_with_the_MSP430_LaunchPad_Workshopwho are you to deny? how is it going? the lauchpad? i have few here but never program it, dont know how and never heard a buzz about it. one of reason why arduino is so succesful imho, is because it has "free" and "open source" name in it, regardless of braindead who invent it. there is no free meal, but statistically, people always love free meal. take your time try to learn digesting that fact.and one thing i've digested the other meaning of "free OSHW" is what? no proper documentation! thats what free OSHW is. dont like the documentation, hw or sw? make your own.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2015, 05:40:40 am
content: Quote from: Mechatrommer on January 13, 2015, 11:34:38 pmMy experience tells me exactly the opposite. The more complex the system is, the less useful is a debugger. That's because it provides a too narrow view while the flow crosses task, process and data center boundaries and involves RPC to various services and backends. There are better ways to handles such system than gdb and the likes and one of them is logging (a fancy variant of printf).

author: Nerull
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2015, 11:45:19 am
content: Quote from: filssavi on January 13, 2015, 06:45:49 pmSo don't use it? There are more advanced IDEs out there if you want to use them. It's funny you hold up eclipse, which is widely considered a flaming pile of garbage by most of the programmers I know.Sit a newbie in front of eclipse (or visual studio) and they'll be completely and utterly lost. Sometimes an overwhelming number of options is not a good thing. The Arduino IDE is heavily based on Processing, which is meant to be a very simple beginner tool. For many simple projects, it works just fine. If you need more, there are more advanced options available.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2015, 12:02:18 pm
content: QuoteAgreed.Much of the debate is the elitist mentality: "Look, Ma, I am using a sophisticated IDE. I must be better than those Arduino guys! Right, Ma?"Arduino does a simple job in a simple way. That's why it is successful.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2015, 02:21:48 pm
content: Quote from: Nerull on January 14, 2015, 11:45:19 amEclipse is my IDE of choice (mostly for Java and C++) and so are most people were I work.

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2015, 05:02:16 pm
content: Quote from: Nerull on January 14, 2015, 11:45:19 amLike arduino ide (too simplistic) and visual studio( the most complex ide out there) are the only two ide complexity levels existing...Dont be ridiculous, it's like saying that if a little signal nmos is not enough a SCR capable of switching many hundeds or even thousand amps should be used, maybe there is a couple of other options in the middle...That said almost all the android developers out there use eclipse so it must be the best ide ever created right (i actually dont think that i'm just appliyng the logic of a lot of people here, if is used than it is automatically good and everyone that sayis otherwise has tunnel vision)

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2015, 05:59:24 pm
content: QuoteI think what was said is actually the exact opposite of what you understood it to be: Arduino is widely used by the beginners because it is the best for the beginners.That doesn't mean that it is without limitations. In fact, it is precisely because of those limitations that it is a great starting point for those beginners.The best (feature rich) IDEs would have been a nightmare for those beginners.Hope it helps.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2015, 06:44:12 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 14, 2015, 05:59:24 pmNot to mention those 'tool chains' where you need to collect source code and/or binaries from different sources and follow tedious installation process to make them to work on your specific system. I hate tool chains.

author: Nerull
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2015, 07:05:58 pm
content: Quote from: filssavi on January 14, 2015, 05:02:16 pmVisual Studio is far simpler to use than Eclipse, which you seem to prefer, in my experience. Both are far more complex than the Arduino IDE - and there's nothing wrong with that. Even on my more complex projects, I often fire up a simple text editor (vim or sublime text, which offer syntax highlighting but not much else) for quick edits, rather than firing up the whole dev environment. And there's nothing wrong with a beginner playing around with the basics that way.Think about what you're arguing - turn it to hardware. Should a beginner to hardware development be allowed to play around with a breadboard and a box of LEDs, passives, and a few ICs, or do they need to build their first circuit in Altium, throw in an FPGA, and get it mass produced, so they learn "the right way"?

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2015, 12:37:23 am
content: Quote from: Nerull on January 14, 2015, 07:05:58 pmfrom my experience of the past, visual studio is simpler because everything is set brilliantly to default value where most people will use or the easiest and generic setting. usually beginners dont need to change anything, just code, compile and done. why eclipse is succesful? even though a begineer like me have to find the compiler option, finding separate libraries etc to make it work... why its successful and used by most? welll....... itsfree! and several magnitude better than notepaddont tell me because one is so advance they only need to use mspaint to make advance pcb instead of altium the sw. heck who needs token highlighting? whatever

author: tomy983
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2015, 12:41:21 am
content: I am a noob. I have no EE education at all. I could manage to make few things working with arduino, and that is what really got me into electronics. Without it I wouldn't be writing here.Fact is some of the things I made with arduino not always work as expected.There is a lot of support in that community, but a lot -not all- of it I realized is useless. This is how I realized that if I want to make my projects work, I will need to get to a "lower" level, learning more.I guess this is how it works, you dig deeper and deeper..But, coming from the arduino environment, libraries, forum, ready cooked projects, simple wiring drawings etc. all the rest looks kind of scary to me..I really don't know wich route to take from here, i wish there was something in between, from arduino, to what you ee do.Can anyone suggest me a way out of it torwards something better (hardware speaking) without having to get a degree?What would be the step forward for me coming from arduino UNO?Having read the whole thread, obiously not a DUE as I thought.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2015, 01:15:52 am
content: QuoteThe issues you mentioned are unlikely Arduino's. A big part of embedded engineering is in software engineering -> how to write code in a way that it is bug free and modular.Doing projects alone will not get you there. I would suggest that you try to read coding protocols / standards from large corporations' training sessions, or MISRA.

author: tomy983
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2015, 01:38:07 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 16, 2015, 01:15:52 amI will read that for sure! Thank you for the suggestion. I also had a look on the price for those pubblications and is not that expensive either. I really know very little about coding and getting things tidy before learning more looks neat!The issues with my projects tough are probably hardware,I know that because sometimes when I switch off the bathrom lights (cheap led bulbs) the lights in my room turns on!

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2015, 02:04:47 am
content: Quote from: tomy983 on January 16, 2015, 12:41:21 amI highly recommend signing up forthis introductory embedded programming course. It is a free online course through edX that starts in a week. It is very well done with extensive lectures and hands on course material with a great learning environment using the free version of Keil. It will take you well beyond Arduino.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2015, 04:59:01 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on January 12, 2015, 02:25:31 pmThe European version of rot13?

author: tomy983
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2015, 07:26:21 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on January 16, 2015, 02:04:47 amThank you mtdoc, I just finished reading the course info, purchasing the required kit for the exercises, and enrolling to the course. Your suggestion turned out to be better than I hoped I could find! Also, to me it really looks like kind of the next logical step! You really hit it rightI really had no idea such courses even existed, I thought all the hobby ee would learn only by experimenting stuff in their cave!

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2015, 08:10:24 pm
content: There are so many resources available these days. I have gone from zero to warp 9 with only the web based resources in 18mos. I have gone past hobby levels and this has become my primary income. What Arduino taught me is that there is a BIG benefit in learning the fundementals. Skipping to the end with kits that shield the user from all those pesky details was a great way for me to understand what the end game could be. To make something completely on my own has been vastly more rewarding since I have control over every element. The more I learn, the less I like anything about Arduino (for my projects). My goals (among many) are to make products that are as small and powerful as possible. I can get every clock-cycle out of a processor and make the PCB as dense as possible.I am not suggesting my path is appropriate for all, just that there is no limit to how much you can learn from your cave. For casual experiments and curious learning, Arduino is fantastic. For those that have hopes of engineering something unique and compelling, you may find the limitations are too much. Not everyone wants to learn PCB layout, analog electronics, a C programming.

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2015, 01:09:22 am
content: Quote from: Mechatrommer on January 15, 2015, 12:37:23 amAnd a little detail - Eclipse works with almost every language, toolchain and platform under the Sun. Try to get Visual Studio working for anything but Windows and Microsoft's compilers! (OK, the last versions have some more support, but still no chance to get a custom toolchain in!)My experience was exactly the opposite - Visual Studio is anenormous PITAthe moment you need to deal with a larger project, using custom build system that doesn't use VS project and solution files (what sane person uses those on large projects?!) and many bits of the UI are just atrocious - like tiny unresizable dialog boxes with a single line text input where you are expected to write many lines worth of compiler options ... And don't get me started on the retarded editor that doesn't support even basic refactoring out of the box, the code navigation is pretty clunky, horribly slow and memory hogging Intellisense etc.Now this is for C/C++, the C# IDE is actually fairly decent.Eclipse is certainly a big, slow beast that is intimidating to learn but once you do, you will wonder how you could have used Visual StudioThe only problem is that you cannot debug in it if you are developing for Windows using the MS C/C++ compilers, because it cannot use the Microsoft's debugger and gdb doesn't understand Microsoft's debug symbols. But I have routinely worked with Eclipse, ALT-TAB-ing to VS just for debugging of the exe. And for embedded stuff there is no contest - configuring remote debugger in Eclipse is pretty trivial and it just works.

author: ozwolf
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2015, 02:18:28 am
content: Quote from: tomy983 on January 16, 2015, 07:26:21 pmThank you mtdoc & tomy 983. I thought about this for one night and decided to give it a go. Registered and course materials ordered!Ozwolf

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2015, 03:35:46 am
content: Quote from: ozwolf on January 17, 2015, 02:18:28 amYou're welcome. I only got through about 2/3 of the course last year before other responsibilities arose and I no longer had any free time. Time permitting, I'm gonna try to get through the whole thing this year. It looks like they've made some good changes and additions.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2015, 11:39:36 am
content: I also recommend the edx MOOC. I did almost all of it last time. Be sure to participate in the forums; there's lots of extra knowledge to be gained there (including some indications of why Arduino is so successful, once you watch people thrashing around with concepts like bitmasks. :-( ) (BTW, the TI ARM Launchpad used in the class is also supported by "Energia", which is a mostly-Arduino-compatable environment for various TI chips/boards. So: best of several worlds: Keil, CCS, bare gcc, or Energia.)As for the original complaint...The Arduino MEGA, and the DUE that uses the same form-factor, support the Arduino abstractions for IO: Digital pins, PWM pins, Analog pins, Serial Pins. This abstraction is pretty fundamental to the simplified view an arduino presents to its users, no matter how annoying it can be to those engineers who would really like to have had 8/16/32bit parallel IO in the more traditional sense. Life is tough; it's not possible on any microcontroller I know of to simultaneously group "all of the serial pins" or "all of the timer output compare pins" together while also grouping all the pins of each port together. You pick one and hope that people don't call you too many names when they wish you had picked differently.LaserSteve mentioned "Not open Source." Could they elaborate?AFAIK, large parts of the Arduino environment are tagged with GPL2 or even GPL3, making them theoretically incompatible with proprietary commercial projects. Even LGPL is pretty ambiguous in deeply embedded environments. But that's still all "Open source" by definitions. The wide scale (mis)use of inappropriate licenses (for a product that CLAIMS that it can be used for proprietary projects) is unfortunate. (presumably, some of the SW authors are intentionally using viral licenses.)QuoteSounds like "Mr Consultant" has quite a racket going. (What OS?) (Of course, he's not WRONG. But I'll bet more than one person has paid to have that code "re-written"...)