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Why are people teaching kids to program on tiny microcontrollers instead of the beefy laptops they already have? Very few people are doing microcontroller prog
by miki123211 3y ago
Why are people teaching kids to program on tiny microcontrollers instead of the beefy laptops they already have?
Very few people are doing microcontroller programming these days, and so beginner-friendly microcontroller resources are far less plentiful than those for mainstream languages. Just teach kids Python on a normal laptop (or in the cloud if you're in the US and give them Chromebooks).
I guess the ability to interact with the physical world (with servos and such) might make the subject more attractive to some, but I'm sure there are ways to plug those into a real computer, or at least a Pi.
- Liftyee 3y agoThey are getting taught microcontroller programming in addition to programming on PCs - only now they teach the same language for both. I presume it's the school's difference between "Computer Science" and "Engineering" subjects, with more physical electronics aspects to the latter. Personally I think teaching programmers how to interact with the real world beyond a keyboard and screen is pretty important, but I am biased from working on hardware. There are definitely ways to plug servos, etc. into a normal computer, and some of them are already branded as teaching tools. See SAMLabs, etc.