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I bring it up a lot, I promise I'm not trying to spam the site or something like that, but I think every single geek needs to read http://lesswrong.com/lw/154/w

by blhack 16y ago

I bring it up a lot, I promise I'm not trying to spam the site or something like that, but I think every single geek needs to read http://lesswrong.com/lw/154/why_real_men_wear_pink/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/154/why_real_men_wear_pink/ (Why Real Men Wear Pink). I can't tell you how many stupid pointless debates I've gotten into with people about this language vs that language vs this editor vs that editor vs linux vs openBSD vs gpl vs BSD vs MIT vs vs vs vs vs SHUT UP! I'm telling this to myself too because as I said, I've participated in the discussions, but this type of stuff is almost completely pointless. A hacker friend of mine hates the arduino board. Isn't real computing. Isn't real programming. It's a toy. It's STUPID! Stupid? People are building stuff. Who cares if the board has a bunch of stuff that they don't need. They're going to take the toaster apart in a week and repurpose it as a kegerator controller, or a droneduino, or a christmas light controller, or a...whatever. Sorry, I'm getting ranty, but I really, really hate this type of stuff and I find myself having to defend the position of "who f!cking CARES?!" pretty often. One argument I got into recently was with somebody who insisted that people who can't or don't do manual memory management aren't real programmers. Python isn't a real language and nobody really uses it in production. /facepalm Just shut up and code/build. If it doesn't work, take it apart and build it again.

pronoiac 16y ago
A hacker friend of mine hates the arduino board. There are some benefits of working with hardware, even if it's just toys: it's far more accessible to non-geeks, & if it stops working, you can give it a smack & feel better.
- blasdel 16y ago
  But Arduino isn't hardware in that sense — it's a shitty microcontroller rebranded as a standard building block. It's software! The thing that chaps our asses is that it's almost exclusively used where a simple circuit would have done fine, often boiling down to being just a 555 timer or a parallel port breakout box.
  - follower 16y ago
    > The thing that chaps our asses is that it's almost exclusively used where a simple circuit would have done fine, often boiling down to being just a 555 timer or a parallel port breakout box. So what's been lacking in the nearly 40 years since the 555 was created that it's taken until now to get some of the people who are now working with electronics to get started? (Aside from needing to be born. :) ) Your definition of "simple circuit" is probably different from the majority of the world. And you're correct that the majority of what makes the Arduino what it is, is software. I describe it as being popular with software people because it took what used to be a 100% hardware problem (your 555 timer "simple circuit") and turned it into a 90% software/10% hardware problem. The Arduino has got more people into creating tangible electronic devices that operate in the real world--I think that's a good thing--who cares if they don't know what Kirchhoff's circuit laws are before they get something that works.
  - blhack 16y ago
    We used my arduino to build an intervalometer to trigger my camera recently. Was the point of this triggering the camera, or was the point of this building the circuit?

by blhack 16y ago

pronoiac 16y ago

A hacker friend of mine hates the arduino board. There are some benefits of working with hardware, even if it's just toys: it's far more accessible to non-geeks, & if it stops working, you can give it a smack & feel better.

blasdel 16y ago
But Arduino isn't hardware in that sense — it's a shitty microcontroller rebranded as a standard building block. It's software! The thing that chaps our asses is that it's almost exclusively used where a simple circuit would have done fine, often boiling down to being just a 555 timer or a parallel port breakout box.
- follower 16y ago
  > The thing that chaps our asses is that it's almost exclusively used where a simple circuit would have done fine, often boiling down to being just a 555 timer or a parallel port breakout box. So what's been lacking in the nearly 40 years since the 555 was created that it's taken until now to get some of the people who are now working with electronics to get started? (Aside from needing to be born. :) ) Your definition of "simple circuit" is probably different from the majority of the world. And you're correct that the majority of what makes the Arduino what it is, is software. I describe it as being popular with software people because it took what used to be a 100% hardware problem (your 555 timer "simple circuit") and turned it into a 90% software/10% hardware problem. The Arduino has got more people into creating tangible electronic devices that operate in the real world--I think that's a good thing--who cares if they don't know what Kirchhoff's circuit laws are before they get something that works.
- blhack 16y ago
  We used my arduino to build an intervalometer to trigger my camera recently. Was the point of this triggering the camera, or was the point of this building the circuit?