I think Dave need to create "Arduino" section on forum

[Muxr]

Arduino uses a high level programming way.

Actually it uses C with some high level libraries you call. Same as countless dev boards that have been available for the last 30 years.

What is your theory for the fact that Arduino has become so popular (almost dominant among hobbyists), and so quickly too after it first came out.

Inexpensiveness and the bootloader?  Was there anything else with both those attributes prior to Arduino?

 Open sourced hardware (one of first)
 full blown gcc C++ compiler also open source
 runs on windows/mac/linux  (did any other prior micro development board offer this?)

Great ecosystem for beginners as well. When you lookup problems with arduino, you find that the solutions tend to be very well explained for someone at the beginner level.

Also the terseness of getting a quick prototype up in a few lines of very readable code, without really sacrificing too much of the performance, and without being locked into a restricted high level paradigm (you can even do inline assembly if you want). It's quite fascinating imo because they managed to bootstrap for beginners a very painful process of getting started with micro controllers into a really simple interface, which by the way exists for variety of MCU architectures. Something to my knowledge no one else has managed to do.

And I realize Processing and Wiring existed before Arduino but the Arduino folks packaged it nicely.

[EEVblog]

What is your theory for the fact that Arduino has become so popular (almost dominant among hobbyists), and so quickly too after it first came out.

A combination of things. Mostly it is being in the right place at the right time for the new OSHW hacker/maker revolution and the community support.
Previous dev boards that did the same thing didn't take off like that because the ecosystem wasn't right, the www either wasn't developed then or was in it's infancy etc.

Inexpensiveness and the bootloader?  Was there anything else with both those attributes prior to Arduino?

Yes, bootloaded chip dev systems are not new.
The PICaxe for example started around 2000 I believe as one example. 5 years before the arduino.

[Rasz]

What is your theory for the fact that Arduino has become so popular (almost dominant among hobbyists), and so quickly too after it first came out.

Read the history of Arduino, or watch one of Massimo Banzi interviews (I cant find the one where he talked history ).

It was made by teachers teaching (Massimo@Interaction Design Institute Ivrea) a bunch of artsy noobs. They started with $100 Basic stamp and polished curriculum until they settled on atmel and processing/wiring. Rest is just packaging and marketing. It blew up because for every nerd like me/you there is 100 curious people that like blinking leds. Nerds usually say 'oh yeah, you need 4 semesters ee and 3 semesters cs to blink that shit yo!', all of a sudden there was something soccer moms could pick up over the weekend.

[andersm]

C++ for 8 bit microcontrollers... they choose the wrong way...

No problem with that, if you know what you're doing. I can recommend this book, most of the examples are using ATmegas.

[jnz]

Nerds usually say 'oh yeah, you need 4 semesters ee and 3 semesters cs to blink that shit yo!', all of a sudden there was something soccer moms could pick up over the weekend.

Whew... Glad I never talked to anyone like that when my company decided we needed a microcontroller solution. I'd have never got off the ground if I was told it was something you needed school for

[Palmitoxico]

C++ for 8 bit microcontrollers... they choose the wrong way...

No problem with that, if you know what you're doing. I can recommend this book, most of the examples are using ATmegas.

The power of C++ is the STL. To effectively use C++ you need dynamic memory allocation.

I use C++ to write computer software (where I can have all the goodness of C++11 like multhreading support), and almost all power features of C++ just don't make sense in a 8 bit microcontroller with 2KiB of ram...

A well wrote C code layer would be faster and as easy to use in comparison to the Arduino C++ (most of the beginners don't write object oriented code anyway).

[ez24]

If this is about starting an "Arduino" section - I would like to see that

Since it is said this is a more advance forum, I believe if there were more Arduino posts, there would be more advance Arduino insults.  The advance users could vent more against us newbies 

I actually enjoy reading the insults, even those directed towards me.   Sometimes a slap in the face helps.  When I first started posting I got a good slap that saved me a lot of frustration and it was related to the Arduino.

So instead of the "nice" forums, Arduino users could come here and get their asses kicked.

[langwadt]

C++ for 8 bit microcontrollers... they choose the wrong way...

No problem with that, if you know what you're doing. I can recommend this book, most of the examples are using ATmegas.

The power of C++ is the STL. To effectively use C++ you need dynamic memory allocation.

I use C++ to write computer software (where I can have all the goodness of C++11 like multhreading support), and almost all power features of C++ just don't make sense in a 8 bit microcontroller with 2KiB of ram...

A well wrote C code layer would be faster and as easy to use in comparison to the Arduino C++ (most of the beginners don't write object oriented code anyway).

I'm not sure, the arduino stuff I've seen is pretty much C apart from the syntax

[andersm]

The power of C++ is the STL. To effectively use C++ you need dynamic memory allocation.

It's one part. There are features you can use without dynamic allocation. If you can arrange so that eg. all allocation is done on startup, or you never free memory, dynamic allocation isn't even a problem.

[Palmitoxico]

I'm not sure, the arduino stuff I've seen is pretty much C apart from the syntax

C++ is almost a superset of C, so you may think that's C but it's not.

Here's an example:

Code: [Select]

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

// initialize the library with the numbers of the interface pins
LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2);

void setup() {
  // set up the LCD's number of columns and rows:
  lcd.begin(16, 2);
  // Print a message to the LCD.
  lcd.print("hello, world!");
}

The "LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2);" declaration is not allowed o C ANSI syntax, in fact this piece of code call the constructor of the lcd object (C++). It's a stripped down C++ (not STL, no dynamic memory allocation) .

The power of C++ is the STL. To effectively use C++ you need dynamic memory allocation.

It's one part. There are features you can use without dynamic allocation. If you can arrange so that eg. all allocation is done on startup, or you never free memory, dynamic allocation isn't even a problem.

Without dynamic allocation you don't have strings, vectors, queues, maps, lists, so you will have an level of abstraction almost equal to C, then I don't see any advantage in using C++ (you could argue that OOP is more elegant but I think that is easier for a beginner to understand functions call/return than classes, objects, constructors, destructors, etc).

[andersm]

Without dynamic allocation you don't have strings, vectors, queues, maps, lists, so you will have an level of abstraction almost equal to C, then I don't see any advantage in using C++

STL is just an utility. You still get classes and inheritance, templates, namespaces, the stricter type system, constexpr, lambdas and so on. Any C programmer will encounter attempts at implementing some of the features of C++, usually poorly. There's also lots of code that could be made a lot cleaner just by having constructors and destructors.

[ale500]

It the idea is to open a uC sub-folder, and sadly Arduino is not a uC, I'd vote for a PDP-11 sub-forum . Why not.

[cloudscapes]

An Arduino is a microcontroller. Why make a special section?

Came here to say exactly this.

It's as strange an idea to me as those dedicated apple stores. Why not just have phone/tablet stores of all kinds?

[Macbeth]

I've always thought of the Arduino as not much more than the Atmel AVR's I was working on over a decade ago, AT90S2313 and 8515 with an STK200. I did all my coding in assembler or avr-gcc using WinAVR back then too. Other than the bootloader and using a built in USB instead of a parallel port dongle what is the difference really? Why do we need a distinction between "Arduino" and any other AVR or dev board?

[ElektroQuark]

The difference is in the developing enviroment.

[ez24]

The difference is in the developing environment.

An "Arduino" section may cause more people to see it and they may learn of Dave's YT videos and increase his views which would increase his income which would allow him to buy more toys which would cause more interest in the toys for others.   Seems a win win and I actually cannot see the downside.

[MarkF]

I would like to see an Adruino sub-section and a Microchip (PIC) sub-section at least.
So far my concentration has been with PIC MCUs and it would be nice to just search through a PIC section for information.  Likewise when I start working with the Arduino I recently bought, just being able to look at an Arduino section would be helpful.

[ralphd]

The official Arduino forum is more like Disneyland. Everything is possible, and it's a really small world!

Beautiful +1

If Dave were on the Arduino forums, he wouldn't last long.  Most of the moderators are prudes who kiss Marchese Banzi's ass.  The first time Dave says bullshit, he'd be banned!

[legacy]

I have been developing polymorphism with ANSI/C for 2 weeks, the result is good working. I straitly need C because I do not have license for C++ and I can't use Gcc. I have developed a "collector", a sort of hyper list which accommodates different kind of data type. I had to develop a wrapper with a lot of tricks, so let me say: I envy who can use C++, because certainly you can, but to do these things in C you have to struggle hard.

[Ribster]

I would like to see an Adruino sub-section and a Microchip (PIC) sub-section at least.
So far my concentration has been with PIC MCUs and it would be nice to just search through a PIC section for information.  Likewise when I start working with the Arduino I recently bought, just being able to look at an Arduino section would be helpful.

I do understand the need to get some separation in the topic.
The only way to filter it out is via search. Then god hope the topic users are using the right terms that you are searching for.
A subcategory can prefilter those messages/topics for you, which can be very helpfull.

I've always found a forum type setup very confusing when you are trying to search for something. They hammer on no duplicate posts etc..
But the fact is that you have to search for pages and pages until you find that one message in the topic you are after. (For example the rigol hack).
If you're lucky the OP actively updates the first post..

In my opinion, there is advantage in splitting the huge chunck of MCU/FPGA in multiple sections, but if you do it, you need to do it per hardware family not per software family.

[Rasz]

I would like to see an Adruino sub-section and a Microchip (PIC) sub-section at least.
So far my concentration has been with PIC MCUs and it would be nice to just search through a PIC section for information.  Likewise when I start working with the Arduino I recently bought, just being able to look at an Arduino section would be helpful.

I do understand the need to get some separation in the topic.
The only way to filter it out is via search. Then god hope the topic users are using the right terms that you are searching for.
A subcategory can prefilter those messages/topics for you, which can be very helpfull.

I've always found a forum type setup very confusing when you are trying to search for something. They hammer on no duplicate posts etc..
But the fact is that you have to search for pages and pages until you find that one message in the topic you are after. (For example the rigol hack).
If you're lucky the OP actively updates the first post..

In my opinion, there is advantage in splitting the huge chunck of MCU/FPGA in multiple sections, but if you do it, you need to do it per hardware family not per software family.

tags would solve that, like on stackexchange
or smarter forum software, look at elektroda.pl
this is main forum:
 http://www.elektroda.pl/rtvforum/forums.html
this is microcontrollers section:
 http://www.elektroda.pl/rtvforum/forum12.html
and then you have individual subsections:
 Ogólne  AVR  Arduino  PIC  ARM  Raspberry Pi  IoT - internet rzeczy  Pozosta?e  Uk?ady programowalne  Pocz?tkuj?cy
with first ("Ogólne" meaning ALL) aggregating all the subsections

Im sure there is a plugin/mod for SFM that replicates this PHPBB functionality.