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I started with arduino a few years ago as a hobby and loved it as an easy way to get into the field but lately I have been realizing how many terrible habits I'

I started with arduino a few years ago as a hobby and loved it as an easy way to get into the field but lately I have been realizing how many terrible habits I've obtained by learning this way. It took me weeks to retrain my brain to prefer looking at schematics instead of the breadboard views and I'm still trying to learn atmel studio and directly programming chips. It's coming along but slowly. I still think arduino is a great way for interested people to break into electronics but there is no clear 'line in the sand' when they should stop learning that way

swiley 9y ago
Don't forget, avrgcc can generate hex files for atmel chips without dragging a whole IDE around.
- davexunit 9y ago
  I'm a novice when it comes to Arduinos and stuff, but I second your suggestion for using the avrgcc toolchain instead of the Arduino IDE. I tinker with Arduinos and Arduino-likes that have the atmega32u4 chip with built-in USB controller, write the firmware in C with the LUFA library providing USB support, avrgcc to compile, and avrdude or dfu-programmer to flash.
drewm1980 9y ago
Maybe there should be a button that dumps out your project as .cpp files and a working Makefile... It's not hard to take your arduino source and figure out which #includes are being hidden from you, write your own Makefile, etc if you already know what you're doing, but if you don't know what you're doing and try to stick your Arduino code into gcc, you're trying to learn with something that started broken.
TickleSteve 9y ago
Do yourself a favour and just use 'make' and 'g++' directly, ignore the Arduino wrappers, they're just toys that hamper you after a while.
- colejohnson66 9y ago
  How?
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    The Eclipse CDT guys do support Arduino devices. http://www.eclipse.org/community/eclipse_newsletter/2017/april/article4.php http://www.eclipse.org/community/eclipse_newsletter/2017/apr...
  - HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
    The wrappers are slow. I have a project where I need to sample data at 50kHz and update at 5kHz, 14-bit output. Can't do it with Arduino's syntactic sugar. The IDE is terrible for large, multi-file projects. It just doesn't have the level of integration of, e.g., Visual Studio (that Atmel Studio is based on). It's a fantastic beginner tool and a great source of ultra-cheap hardware, but the IDE runs out of steam pretty quickly.

swiley 9y ago

Don't forget, avrgcc can generate hex files for atmel chips without dragging a whole IDE around.

davexunit 9y ago
I'm a novice when it comes to Arduinos and stuff, but I second your suggestion for using the avrgcc toolchain instead of the Arduino IDE. I tinker with Arduinos and Arduino-likes that have the atmega32u4 chip with built-in USB controller, write the firmware in C with the LUFA library providing USB support, avrgcc to compile, and avrdude or dfu-programmer to flash.

drewm1980 9y ago

Maybe there should be a button that dumps out your project as .cpp files and a working Makefile... It's not hard to take your arduino source and figure out which #includes are being hidden from you, write your own Makefile, etc if you already know what you're doing, but if you don't know what you're doing and try to stick your Arduino code into gcc, you're trying to learn with something that started broken.

TickleSteve 9y ago

Do yourself a favour and just use 'make' and 'g++' directly, ignore the Arduino wrappers, they're just toys that hamper you after a while.

colejohnson66 9y ago
How?
- pjmlp 9y ago
  The Eclipse CDT guys do support Arduino devices. http://www.eclipse.org/community/eclipse_newsletter/2017/april/article4.php http://www.eclipse.org/community/eclipse_newsletter/2017/apr...
- HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
  The wrappers are slow. I have a project where I need to sample data at 50kHz and update at 5kHz, 14-bit output. Can't do it with Arduino's syntactic sugar. The IDE is terrible for large, multi-file projects. It just doesn't have the level of integration of, e.g., Visual Studio (that Atmel Studio is based on). It's a fantastic beginner tool and a great source of ultra-cheap hardware, but the IDE runs out of steam pretty quickly.