On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:23:08 -0400, you wrote:

>The "Arduino" has been around for a while now. For those who don't
>know, the Arduino is an Atmel microcontroller on a board with an FTDI
>USB->RS232 chip and preloaded bootloader. The system also includes
>(but is not limited to) host software with which people write very
>high-level code called sketches (AKA firmware to the engineers in the
>room.)
>
>What function do you see the Arduino serving? It basically seems like
>it could be a learning tool and/or a simple means to an end. There is
>quite an active group of people using Arduinos here around Boston.

The way I see it, it's a way to get people into building embedded things quickly and easily - that
has to be a good thing as some will be encouraged to explore further. 
It is also a valuable tool for teaching, and is used by many courses where electronics & computing
is not the core sublject - design/art type stuff. 
It is also a handy tool for quickly implementing 1-off embedded control jobs.

Personally I hate the 'sketch' term or anything that calls a program something 'less scary' (patch
being another popular one) and never miss an opportunity to taunt an Arduinist about not using
'real' embedded hardware.... 

In the same way that software packages to make PC programming less 'scary'  have become popular
(vvvv, max/msp, openframeworks,Processing  etc., etc.), The Arduino software is doing the same for
hardware.

These days there really is little need for  someone with a hobbyist or non-production need/desire to
create sn embedded controller to get into low-level programming to achieve some pretty impressive
stuff.

Of course someone has done a PIC based Arduino which is completely missing the point - it's not
about the hardware.

My biggest criticism of the Arduino hardware is not having put the headers on a 0.1" pitch
  . 

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