Having been a professional programmer in the past Arduino got me back into embedded and was very helpful to my profession.
BUT I did find the forums next to useless with many asking how to blink a LED make a robot and do facial recognition with and Arduino Uno (?)
I soon drifted away to the AVRFeaks forum and studio 7.
Now Atmel has been bought by PIC, who have missed the value of getting hobbyists who are also professional Engineers on board. Their new compilers and such are now heading away from being free.
When at work Engineers are under high pressure to meet product deadlines so becoming familiar with various MCUs in work time is not possible. You are in a situation where you have to run immediately, so you tend to go with what you know.
It is very common for Engineers to "go with what they know".
When working in Taiwan I have even seen many telephone PABXs that have used 8088, surely not suitable.
With developments in Arduino there have been boards the likes of the BluePill and and Teensy 4.0
These are a very interesting more high end development.
To take advantage of this there need to be a different forum to this one.
Yes, I am just a requester but a better forum can and will happen.
I would like to see it remain under the Arduino banner.
I don't find your argument at all compelling. The reason you provide for the need of an "advanced" forum is the presence of posts from beginners. However, it sounds like you are interested in using the forum to ask questions, rather than answer them. So why do you care that beginners are also asking questions in the same forum section?
My experience in years of being here is that the advanced users answering questions here are equally happy to answer beginner questions as well as advanced questions, so I don't see a problem with the two being mixed together. Sure, there is probably a higher percentage of beginner questions here, but that's because Arduino is specifically targeted to beginners.
I think the current topic-based system of categories we have makes the most sense. If we wanted to also break it down into beginner and advanced, would we need to double the number of forum sections, or would there just be a single advanced section where advanced posts on any subject are all lumped together? How do you define what is considered advanced?
It already proves almost impossible to get people to think before they choose a section in which to post a question. Giving more options will just make for more bad choices.
If you are an experienced embedded system programmer I'm sure there will be many opportunities on the Forum where you can help newbies and not-so-newbies.
I soon drifted away to the AVRFeaks forum and studio 7.
Now Atmel has been bought by PIC, who have missed the value of getting hobbyists who are also professional Engineers on board. Their new compilers and such are now heading away from being free.
I think that the Microchip acquisition of Atmel has been going really well, actually. Since then, we have:
A bunch of very inexpensive development boards for new AVR chips (the "Curiosty Nano" series.)
A $15 programmer/debug probe (MPLAB SNAP.) (Currently on sale for less than $8!)
an IDE (MPLABX) that runs on Linux and Mac in addition to Windows. Based on Open Source "NetBeans" (may be somewhat more primitive than the Windows-only, Visual-Studio-based AS7, but ... has other advantages.)
No visible changes to AVRFreaks.
A bunch of new, interesting, and low-priced AVR chips (although to be fair, these were probably "in-progress" before the acquisition.)
The only downside is the repackaging of avr-gcc as "xc8", with a non-free option. avr-gcc (which is also what is used by Arduino) is still available, and the free version of xc8 isn't too bad.
To take advantage of this there need to be a different forum to this one.
Teensy has its own forum. I think STMDuino does as well.
If you want there to be more "advanced questions and answers" on the Arduino Forums, go ahead and ask more advanced questions, and we'll see what happens.
westfw:
Teensy has its own forum. I think STMDuino does as well.
The STM32Duino forum has been taken down recently as a result of STM taking over STM32Duino. I would be surprised if they didn't start a new forum though.
If you create an advanced users forum I can guarantee that pretty soon it too will be filled questions some noob considers advanced just because it confuses them. Just like all the “compiler bugs” that are found on this site that just turn out to be rookie code mistakes. Everybody wants to think they’re an expert.
pert:
I don't find your argument at all compelling. The reason you provide for the need of an "advanced" forum is the presence of posts from beginners. However, it sounds like you are interested in using the forum to ask questions, rather than answer them. So why do you care that beginners are also asking questions in the same forum section?
My experience in years of being here is that the advanced users answering questions here are equally happy to answer beginner questions as well as advanced questions, so I don't see a problem with the two being mixed together. Sure, there is probably a higher percentage of beginner questions here, but that's because Arduino is specifically targeted to beginners.
No I don't want to ask questions, you are making assumptions there.
I do what I consider as advanced is to do some research and do a few searches on the forum and realizing that nearly all questions have been asked before and not to waste others time. That's why you wont see me putting much on here.
I have colleges who have regressed to doing internet searches and look for internet "hacks", this does not work for embedded stuff. One level below this is asking the same questions again and again. Makes forums tedious and not worth checking.
I think that the Microchip acquisition of Atmel has been going really well, actually.
Could be too early to come up with a conclusion.
I have expressed an opinion that it appears at this stage that home hobbyist could be collateral damage.
As one involved in avionics I need to slice up .8usec pulses at L band ( some 1.3 ghz) so I see bigger things happening else where that are useful.
If some one takes the time to express an opinion isnt that is one of the functions of a forum.
Not falling for the trap of getting into a raging argument.
embedder:
No I don't want to ask questions, you are making assumptions there.
I do what I consider as advanced is to do some research and do a few searches on the forum and realizing that nearly all questions have been asked before and not to waste others time. That's why you wont see me putting much on here.
I apologize if I assumed wrongly. Your original post didn't provide me with enough information to understand your use of the forum. Actually, I still don't understand. If you're not interested in asking questions or answering questions here, how would you benefit from an advanced section?
I also always do a lot of research and experimentation before considering posting a question here on the forum. I find that I am almost always able to answer my questions that way. I have rarely felt the need to restrict my searches to a specific forum section (or even limit my search to the forum). I think it is more effective to just craft a high quality global search query.
embedder:
One level below this is asking the same questions again and again. Makes forums tedious and not worth checking.
I do sometimes get a bit frustrated with the same questions over and over again, but I've accepted that people learn in different ways. Although I personally prefer to just find the existing information I need on Google, I've realized the feeling of one-on-one interaction they get on the Forum is somehow important for some people. For questions that are asked again and again, I have a collection of carefully written answers that are organized so that I can copy and paste them to the forum in a matter of seconds. So it really isn't much of a burden for me. If me spending a few seconds to copy paste the same answer I've given a hundred times before helps someone along in their learning journey, I'm happy to do it. One of the things I really like about this forum is that you rarely see the sarcastic "what, is Google broken?" types of answers.
embedder:
If some one takes the time to express an opinion isnt that is one of the functions of a forum.
Of course it is. I thought your proposal was interesting, but I didn't find your supporting arguments to be compelling. That's my opinion and I'm also free to express that here. Maybe you could change my mind if you provided more details on how this would work and why we need it.
embedder:
Not falling for the trap of getting into a raging argument.
I think it's quite possible for us to have a discussion on this topic without it turning into a "raging argument".
Delta_G:
Anybody understand what this guy is on about?
We seem to be assuming and guessing in this thread already, so here's another guess:
This self-proclaimed advanced user (they're in avionics !) is too good for tedious forums pampering newbies who keep asking the same questions over and over again.
Participating in such fora is a waste of their valuable time, unless there's a shielded section for the minds which have ascended to their level.
Question from me, a self-proclaimed newbie:
How are you going to make sure some low post-count member is to be allowed to this elite section ?
