Thinking ouside the box

Development Suggestions for the Arduino Project
1

5 Things I you might like to to see in the future.

  1. stack-duino, why no stack 2 or 4 of them up on one another/but that would involve a peave of mine, a power pin that's not there.
  2. Higher level programing, the bottom line does it work, I have seen some really bad code that works really well and that's what counts.
    Don't give me your mumbo jumbo about clock speed, If that's the most important thing for you, you be writing in machine language not C
  3. As the prices come down maybe integrate some WIFI, and multi-core processing.
  4. Plugs....those pins suck long term they fall out.
  5. Can some one write a good programing manual that's complete, we got them out there missing tons of info.
2

  1. is discussed a year or so ago, problem is that you would loose pins. A coprocessor shield for fast math (e.g. FFT) seems to make more sense

  2. Arduino and its programming environment is a choice just like life :wink:

3a) cheap Wifi would certainly be appreciated,

3b) Multicore processing, that is another type of challenge imho than programming Arduino. Arduino is the "minimal approach and still it works challenge" where multicore is about "how can I burn as much CPU cycles without doing someting usefull" (Sorry could not resist :slight_smile:

  1. Not experienced yet. There are shield with serious connectors. So could be a valid point.
  1. Can some one write a good programing manual that's complete, we got them out there missing tons of info.

The Arduino site only offers the Arduino specific parts of the language.

In short it is impossible to be complete.

And I did not even mention the zillion different sensors and actuators (that need different handshakes) that can be connected...
(oops just did :slight_smile:

Seriously, the two links above give you a lot of information to get started, and if what you are searching for is not in it, there is allways the forum :slight_smile:

(answering just from my head :wink:

3

perkunas:
5 Things I you might like to to see in the future.

  1. stack-duino, why no stack 2 or 4 of them up on one another/but that would involve a peave of mine, a power pin that's not there.

Not sure I understand. The real limit of stacking arduinos using the standard shield pins is that the I/O pins would all be wired together, severely limiting the usefulness of the array of processor modules. If one board was powered via it's external power connector there would be more then enough current capacity to power 3 or 4 stacked boards via the Vin pin, assuming no or very limited external components.

  1. Higher level programing, the bottom line does it work, I have seen some really bad code that works really well and that's what counts.
    Don't give me your mumbo jumbo about clock speed, If that's the most important thing for you, you be writing in machine language not C

I've been told that a good optimizing C compiler like gcc C/C++ used in arduino is very competitive with assembly language for most applications assuming proper algorithm selection. So maybe one could be 10% improvement in speed/space over C but at X10 or more development time?

  1. As the prices come down maybe integrate some WIFI, and multi-core processing.

I know little about networking stuff.

  1. Plugs....those pins suck long term they fall out.

You mean the shield pin sockets? They are designed to mate with .025" spare header pins, and work very well that way. Sticking wires into them is OK for light weight quick and dirty prototyping and development, but permanent projects should use header pins to interface with the shield connector sockets.

  1. Can some one write a good programing manual that's complete, we got them out there missing tons of info.

There must be a zillion C/C++ programming manuals out there. Once you have a good understanding of the basic C/C++ language then one should not have too much problem reading and understanding all the arduino's core and library codes as the source code is in the standard distribution loaded on your PC, all written in C/C++. Much of the difficulty in understanding programming microcontrollers in not in the language used to program it but understanding the microcontrollers hardware which is best learned via the AVR datasheet for the specific chip being used. This is true of any controller chip.

Lefty

4

perkunas:
5 Things I you might like to to see in the future.

I wouldn't.

perkunas:

  1. stack-duino, why no stack 2 or 4 of them up on one another/but that would involve a peave of mine, a power pin that's not there.

Why would you want 2 or 4 arduinos stacked together? What would be the purpose? More programming memory? You'd have to spend a fair bit of that on a protocol to interface all 2 or 4 of them. Why not have them spread around or using a Mega board?

perkunas:
2) Higher level programing, the bottom line does it work, I have seen some really bad code that works really well and that's what counts.
Don't give me your mumbo jumbo about clock speed, If that's the most important thing for you, you be writing in machine language not C

I think you are looking at it the wrong way. Clock speed and memory size are the most important things... and for that matter writing in C/Assembly is the best approach. You are not writing programs in C when you use the Arduino... it's C++ and the overhead that it causes can be seen in almost all the libraries. So if you want to use a higher level language, why not using a raspberry Pi or a beagle board?

perkunas:
3) As the prices come down maybe integrate some WIFI, and multi-core processing.

Why do you need multicore processing? Are you ready to write libraries for that kind of processor?
Wi-fi would be nice... but then again, with such short memory, it's not a must have.

perkunas:
4) Plugs....those pins suck long term they fall out.

Not sure what you mean here... the USB B plug should disappear though. :slight_smile:

perkunas:
5) Can some one write a good programing manual that's complete, we got them out there missing tons of info.

Again, you are looking at this the wrong way. If you program in C with the AVR-GCC, all the information you need is there for you to use. If you use third party libraries (like pretty much everything), then I guess you have to ask the third party for documentation. But, and this is the best part, if you really need to see what a library does, you can open its files and see for yourself.