hi all,
in 2019 I created a pull-request for the Due on Github gestartet. The only response I received was an automatic request to sign a licence agreement (aka CLA) after 16 months... And the last update in the SAM repository seems to be 15 months ago.
Therefore my question: is the Arduino Due still being maintained? Specifically: is it recommended for future designs? Or did I simply check the wrong repository...?
For a brief feedback thanks a lot in advance!
Regards, Georg
When I click on the link for the pull request, then I see a long discussion with a link to this forum where pert writes that the focus is on newer boards.
The Arduino team can only do so much and there are many new projects, I guess that makes the water thinner (sorry, probably not an English expression).
There are new boards, new PRO boards, a Web environment. There are many things going on, but not for the Due board. I don't mind, I advice others not to use the Due board anyway.
About your pull request: I can understand why others hesitate to add that. It has to work for every board.
Actually the recent discussion was what triggered my above question, and I only found the forum discussion after I posted my question.
In summary I understand that the Arduino team is overstretched with too many boards to maintain, and that Due is no longer actively maintained. In this case, which board (with Mega form factor) do you propose for new designs?
As for my pull request: actually I would prefer that the UART code was separated from the rest of the HW-layer, just like in the AVR code. Then new functionality could be added via libraries, similar like NeoHWSerial for the AVR boards. But apparently that is also not going to happen.
The Arduino Uno does not need support anymore, because the bugs have been solved in the past. That is today still the best known and easiest board.
Perhaps the SAMD branch with the SAMD21G is a good choice, which is on many MKR board and other Arduino boards.
The ESP8266 and ESP32 don't rely on Arduino, they make their own build environment. That has been improved for both in the last years, even though they have their own development team.
The Arduino software layer on top of the Mbed layer seems to work well. I don't know how the individual boards with Mbed are supported.
My choice:
After that perhaps the Leonardo/Micro and the Mega 2560, followed by the other boards, then at the very bottom the Arduino Due (it has always been at the bottom and it will always be).
The only other board in that form factor I am aware of is the Adafruit Grand Central M4:
I think its "Adafruit SAMD Boards" platform is fairly well maintained:
Your pull request is for a significant enhancement to the Arduino environment ("Added option to attach custom functions to Serial receive and transmit interrupts") that I suspect would be unlikely to be accepted even on boards that are currently being developed. I'm surprised that you got any indications of interest at all. Arduino is big on maintaining the "simplicity" of their model, and is pretty resistant to "enhancements" in general. (Witness: no digitalWriteFast(), despite many third-party implementations and constant complaining about its slowness (mostly from non-arduino users!) (eg digitalWrite() is embarassingly slow on Due... · Issue #16 · arduino/ArduinoCore-sam · GitHub ))
the Adafruit Grand Central M4
Adafruit has been pretty quick to incorporate pull requests that I have made (actually, I've submitted "issues" with suggested fixes, and they've been like "great - can you generate a pull request?") But most of those were bug fixes rather than adding major new features. The GCM4 is definitely a nice board! (But OTOH, a lot of their focus is on "CircuitPython")
(OTTH, GCM4 has several SERCOMs with "uncommitted" ISRs, so it may be easier to get them to do whatever you want. See Duino-hacks/test_sercomlib/sercomlib.h at master · WestfW/Duino-hacks · GitHub )