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I think this is more targeted at beginners or at hardware/electronics people that have little software experience. In those cases vscode + platform.io is probab

I think this is more targeted at beginners or at hardware/electronics people that have little software experience. In those cases vscode + platform.io is probably more daunting than a simple arduino editor with a button to flash your code to the chip.

BoorishBears 4y ago
I feel like the complexity is being oversold a bit here, I agree Arduino is very beginner friendly, but PlatformIO is very much a "Click and Play" development experience For an absolute beginner PlatformIO is off the beaten path so I'd say skip it to start, but if you have any familiarity with traditional IDEs, PlatformIO is probably 90% as beginner friendly while being more of a traditional development environment. 2.0 being based on Monaco will help bridge the gap, but it's clear that they're still going for a very pared down experience in the Arduino IDE. Other comments comparing it to Notepad are about right... it's very easy to get into Notepad but can be limiting once you get past the initial hump
- skybrian 4y ago
  I'm using PlatformIO now, but in my experience the installation experience is hit and miss, due to lack of feedback while downloading and installing things. It just hangs, and you don't know if it failed. A workaround is to not follow their suggestion to install from the VS Code plugin and install the command line tools instead. Also, serial monitoring and plotting isn't very good. I ended up writing my own: https://serialviz.skybrian.com/ https://serialviz.skybrian.com/ That said, package management is more sane. Having a platformio.ini file that you can check in helps with reproducibility.
- LtWorf 4y ago
  just installing vscode is daunting. Especially if you are on linux where you use apt to install the arduino ide.
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    If you can't install vscode and platform.io tools you're gonna have a really rough time with even basic aruduino programming. There are probably a dozen good videos on it on youtube. I don't knwo anyone who just sits down at a terminal and doesn't look up at tutorial or whatnot on what they want to do.
    - LtWorf 4y ago
      Knowing algorithms and hardware is completely unrelated to knowing where to click in vscode.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  Yeah but everything is a couple clicks away in the arduino library and you don't have to understand much about how the libraries and such work together (say for making a make/cmake file). Also the IDE sort of silos you off from mixing up projects and such as it just launches a new instance for anything "new". It's great for beginners but the lack of control probably drives most software developers crazy and they opt for platform io or jsut command line tools. It's nothing like notepad. Notepad doesn't let you include libraries, upload, have a build in serial and plotter, etc. For playing around it's fine. I've seen some fairly nice hobby projects done exclusively in it.

BoorishBears 4y ago

I feel like the complexity is being oversold a bit here, I agree Arduino is very beginner friendly, but PlatformIO is very much a "Click and Play" development experience For an absolute beginner PlatformIO is off the beaten path so I'd say skip it to start, but if you have any familiarity with traditional IDEs, PlatformIO is probably 90% as beginner friendly while being more of a traditional development environment. 2.0 being based on Monaco will help bridge the gap, but it's clear that they're still going for a very pared down experience in the Arduino IDE. Other comments comparing it to Notepad are about right... it's very easy to get into Notepad but can be limiting once you get past the initial hump

skybrian 4y ago
I'm using PlatformIO now, but in my experience the installation experience is hit and miss, due to lack of feedback while downloading and installing things. It just hangs, and you don't know if it failed. A workaround is to not follow their suggestion to install from the VS Code plugin and install the command line tools instead. Also, serial monitoring and plotting isn't very good. I ended up writing my own: https://serialviz.skybrian.com/ https://serialviz.skybrian.com/ That said, package management is more sane. Having a platformio.ini file that you can check in helps with reproducibility.
LtWorf 4y ago
just installing vscode is daunting. Especially if you are on linux where you use apt to install the arduino ide.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  If you can't install vscode and platform.io tools you're gonna have a really rough time with even basic aruduino programming. There are probably a dozen good videos on it on youtube. I don't knwo anyone who just sits down at a terminal and doesn't look up at tutorial or whatnot on what they want to do.
  - LtWorf 4y ago
    Knowing algorithms and hardware is completely unrelated to knowing where to click in vscode.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
Yeah but everything is a couple clicks away in the arduino library and you don't have to understand much about how the libraries and such work together (say for making a make/cmake file). Also the IDE sort of silos you off from mixing up projects and such as it just launches a new instance for anything "new". It's great for beginners but the lack of control probably drives most software developers crazy and they opt for platform io or jsut command line tools. It's nothing like notepad. Notepad doesn't let you include libraries, upload, have a build in serial and plotter, etc. For playing around it's fine. I've seen some fairly nice hobby projects done exclusively in it.