On Nov 17, 2011, at 2:21 PM, Neil Cherry wrote:

> These products aren't meant for serious embedded system work (serious mea=
ning needing knowledgeable engineers doing the engineering work).

Maybe.  I'm not seeing a whole lot of difference between something like Ard=
uino and vendor-provided "assists" like the PIC32 peripheral library, or "S=
tellarisware" or "CMSIS" (Cortex Microcontroller Software Interface Standar=
d), or ASF (Atmel Software Framework) or Android/WinCE/Windows/Linux as the=
 basis for an embedded product, or JAVA Embedded or .NET Micro.

They're all attempts to hind the complexities of the bits of an embedded de=
sign that the designer is not specifically interested in dealing with.  Ard=
uino's bar is lower, and it's open source, but...

Jack Ganssle recently called it "The Dumbing down of embedded design" (http=
://www.techonlineindia.com/Blogs/DesignPerspectives/11-11-24/The_dumbing_do=
wn_of_embedded_design.aspx )   4000page datasheets; yes, that's frequently =
more than I want to learn before I get to start something...

Of course, one of the things you can learn is that the people writing these=
 "simplifying tools" really don't do things the way that you would do them.=
  I've been a bit shocked at what I see as deficiencies in the PIC32 librar=
ies and include files and ... development environment.  As a result of play=
ing with ChipKit...

BillW

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