My anecdote (which I suspect is common): When I was brand new to embedded development I spent dozens of hours struggling with a bare ATMega8 before finally get

My anecdote (which I suspect is common): When I was brand new to embedded development I spent dozens of hours struggling with a bare ATMega8 before finally getting an LED to blink. It was all simple stuff, but overwhelming when you're in a new and unfamiliar environment. After playing around with that for a while I got an Arduino, and was able to blink an LED in minutes, and there was a clear path to move on to more sophisticated things. I completely agree that the Arduino IDE is horrible to use, but it makes up for that by making it easy for beginners to get started.