Clarification of terms used in Arduino.

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) General Frequently-Asked Questions
1

Hello, I just joined this Arduino forum. There's a couple of terms that I need to know. What do they mean?
(1) What is meant by software for Arduino environment ?
(2) What is a sketch ?

Thank you
Patrick

2

The environment is the software that allows you to type code, compile it and upload it to the board.

A sketch is the name for a program you write.

3

Thanks Mike.
I downloaded arduino-0012, is that considered an arduino environment?
I have, on my computer, BASCOM-AVR, which I use to work with an ATMEGA32. When I tried to open a program in arduino-0012 (blink), windows gave me a choice of ways to open it. one of them was BASCOM-AVR, so I tried that and it opened the program and it appears to be ready to operate. Is that the proper way of doing things?

Patrick

4

The Arduino-0012 setup should be self-contained and has all the avr tools built-in for its own use.

Start the Arduino program.

If you copied the "Blink" sketch as a bit of text from the webpage, then just paste that into the big white open window, and now you can save it as a sketch on your computer.

If you downloaded a .pde file, which represents a packaged sketch, use the Arduino environment's "File > Open..." menu or the "Open" button on its toolbar. Then find and select your .pde file.

I find this a lot more reliable than depending on your OS's guesses about which applications are for what files.