On Sep 15, 2011, at 5:30 PM, V G wrote:

> It's a bastardization of the whole concept of EE

Arduino isn't about EE.  I thought you were Bio/pre-med?  Did you =20
transfer?

Why should a biology researcher wanting to measure breathing rate for =20
a sleep study using pressure sensors need to know how to design a =20
microcontroller circuit?  (that's an actual example, BTW.)  At my =20
university, chemistry majors got to take a class about making lab =20
equipment that used Lancaster's CMOS cookbook as one of the textbooks =20
(EE majors couldn't get near it; they were busy studying the parasitic =20
capacitance of the semiconductor junctions inside the chips.  =20
"Cookbooks" aren't engineering, they're just tricks!)  Nowdays, it =20
would be nearly criminal for the same class not to include info on =20
board-level solutions like BASIC Stamp and Arduino.

(And arduino isn't aimed at scientists, either.  It's aimed at artists.)

(of course, there's a separate discussion somewhere about all the =20
research software being written by scientists with very little formal =20
training in even the basic principles of software design or computer =20
science, therefore resulting in buggy and unreadable pieces of crap =20
being the cornerstones of efforts that are supposed to shape public =20
policy.)  Scientific papers may get peer reviewed, but the SW that =20
analyzed all that data?   Not so much!)

BillW

--=20
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