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Comment by lemonwaterlime | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a fan because, pedagogically, the structure of how it played out never allowed or helped people actually advance in the craft of it. There are better ways to build a tinker culture where people actually improve over time towards what an experienced EE and such can do. I rarely saw that progression.

What happens as a result of this is that someone spends a lot of time tinkering and then they think they know what they are doing. With that confidence, they might apply for a job or take on a more dangerous project. The job will say they don't actually have the skill, even though they have been putting in the time. And the overconfidence could lead to trying to do more dangerous things than they should on projects.

A tinkering culture is fine, but it needs to have safety and skill progression as its foundation. Most Maker Spaces I have been to have done a good job trying to keep things safe, but ultimately, people are people.

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You’re expecting tinkerers to approach the skill level of an experienced EE? Then what is the education and career experience for?

That also seems to have very little to due with the safety concerns you express in your last two paragraphs.

"Approaching" means to go towards the skillset. A home chef can develop better knife skills when cutting vegetables. That is approaching being a more professional cook, yet it does not mean the person could work in a restaurant. Maybe they could. We're talking about asymptotic.

If you are having understanding this distinction, then that is the exact point I am making about the Maker Movement. It is accepted that people progress if they do, and if they don't, then tough. There is a balance between perpetual tinkering, some sort of progression culture, and a full on degree.

Why must they “progress”? Why can’t people have hobbies? If they finish their blinky LED project and decide that’s enough investment into the hobby, why is that a problem?

Think about how many thousands have purchased a musical instrument only to abandon the hobby after a few months. Is that a failure of music-as-a-hobby or just humans being humans?

Most people I know who get into electronics as a hobby aren’t looking at it as a potential career. Myself included! This is the most absurd take I’ve seen all day.

I don't think Arduino users need to worry too much about safety. Obviously, don't build hobby projects that put lives on the line, but otherwise they're pretty harmless.

Who says a tinkering culture needs to have skill progression? Maybe people just like to tinker. Maybe simple things are still useful.

Let people do things. Let people enjoy things.

The Maker Movement is more than just Arduino coding. Some of these maker spaces have full-on donated Kuka robots or other heavy equipment with minimal safety mechanisms in place other than "be careful".

> I'm not a fan because, pedagogically, the structure of how it played out never allowed or helped people actually advance in the craft of it. There are better ways to build a tinker culture where people actually improve over time towards what an experienced EE and such can do. I rarely saw that progression.

Did you help establish it?

I wonder how many young EEs of today can point to Arduino as their first exposure to electronics. You'll probably have a harder time finding those who don't.

As for "progression", I suppose you're disappointed that very few bicycle owners become professional cyclists.

A young EE is in a degreed program and is getting that progression formally as part of their degree. A person not in that degreed program is taking a random walk through the skills and potential mentors (if and when they exist). That's clearly the issue.

This also goes beyond programming on a microcontroller as the Maker Movement is about more than just electronics.

Long fan of Classic VB6. While you are in the happy path, you fly. But if you try something outside that, it's almost impossible.

But there are a lot of real world problems that can be solved with a form and a few buttons, and you look like a magician for normal people.

I still have one project in production, but the compiler is getting harder and harder to install.

Anyway, there is room for beginers tools, in spite they may have a tall second step.

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Is there a good tutorial for upgrading from Arduino to a proffesional microcontroler? (Or you can write one.)

Yes, there is. It is called "Introduction to Microcontrollers" by Günther Gridling and Bettina Weiss from the Vienna University of Technology, written in 2007.

Unfortunately, it suffers from having a very generic name. It is short enough while going over concepts to take a person just beyond Arduino-land.

Is it possible to make an Arduino clone in a breadboard and then upgrade each component one by one?

It may be a nice escape route from Arduino to professional electronics.

Short answer: Yes. And you always could have.

Longer answer: It's been a while since I have thought about Arduino. But last I recall, it is just an Atmega chip connected to IO. Maybe newer ones have moved to ARM M0 or beyond. That's about when I stopped using Arduino.

But it isn't hard to just start from baremetal on those. You need the user manual for the actual chip so you can configure timers and such. Once you know how to set up one chip, you can set up most any chip.

I do think there is use for a plug and play system like Arduino. It is very user friendly to just use that IDE and get started on Arduino. My critique is that there is rarely a followup progression. That followup progression is critical.

Here's a video showing how to make your own "Arduino" [1]. All the hard work is done by the Atmega chip. So Arduino has built this mythos and this IDE that it seems you have to use. It traps people and prevents them from doing the exploration into the chip itself.

[1]"Build your own Arduino for $5" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlh0dBa2bFA

About the video: I expected more work. It's like 5 components and 5 wires. (Another video, suggested by the algorithm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNIMCdVOHOM )

How hard is to change the programming language? I think in the video they use the Arduino programming IDE.

Ive always just used C. From my recollection, there’s an avr libc library. There’s tutorials online for how to do it. The big thing is once you have that progression path with knowledge like that book I linked, you have a lot of freedom.

Some chips can use Micro Python or even Rust. I have not explored those myself.

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