On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 11:19 PM, Xiaofan Chen wrote: > On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 1:48 AM, Michael Watterson > wrote: > > Personally I don't like the Arduino mechanical arangement or the IDE > > concept. So I don't miss a Microchip version. > > > > I think Arduino is hyped way beyond it's value. It's for people that > > can't solder or do electronics I suppose. > > > I gotta chime in here. I used the Arduino to teach a class of 15 6th and 7th grade students to do embedded programming using the Arduino. They each had their own Arduino board and a small kit of parts and wires. After one week they had strapped Arduino's to RC cars and were able to make the cars do all kinds of tricks and driving patterns. They were also making music (they learned to read music and convert the notes to frequencies and then t= o code. Can you imagine if they had to "solder or do electronics"? We wouldn't hav= e gotten passed the burned fingers stage. The IDE is super easy to use and understand and the language is simple and easy to learn and similar enough to C that any that wanted to could continu= e on a computer track. Carey Fisher --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .