[Liverpool] Liverpool Digest, Vol 387, Issue 1

[Sebastian Arcus]

On 30/09/13 23:12, animation animation wrote:
> The talk sounds good. How hard is an Arduino to programme if you do not
> know any C++?

I'll attempt to answer that one, although I believe there are others 
lurking this list who know way more about Arduino than I do.

Arduino is generally aimed at people who are less computer/programming 
trained - artists, makers etc. Thus the people behind Arduino seem to 
have gone to lengths to make the whole thing as accessible as possible. 
I believe that's why they don't even say officially that it uses C/C++ - 
that might scare people away!

In many ways, it is a lot easier to get started than programming in a 
"proper" C/C++ environment. You have a little software written in Java 
(called Arduino - same as the board) - with few simple controls to check 
the code and upload it to the board. You can start immediately with one 
or two lines of code - nothing else required to get things moving.

The beauty of it is that, although the first steps are simple, you are 
not tied down by the limitations in the interface. There are other 
libraries which can be called from within the software to add 
sophisticated functionality. I believe there are some people out there 
who even load alternate boot-loaders in the Arduino ICU, or even use 
some other software to compile/upload code. So there are plenty of 
possibilities out there to keep expanding, once you get going. But to 
get started, it is as easy as buying a board, plugging the usb cable in 
and installing the Arduino software (which is available for Windows, 
Linux and OSX).


> Sebastian's last talk was excellent. Able to come in and talk about and
> show OpenStreetMap in the level he did. Big well done.

Thank you. I aim to please :-)