In the former semester, senior level engineering students were exposed to Arduino UNO/LCD Programming based on Arduino Library Functions. They, in general, were happy at these quick and interesting methods of LCD Programming; but, few of them wanted to program the LCD using its Instruction Set first and then Arduino Library.
Please, let me know about your opinion/experience: In the coming semester, should I begin with the Instruction Set (where all timing functions would be generated using/addressing the internal registers of the LCD; Fig-1, 2) first and then the Library Function or the reverse? Please be known that the majority of the students (population: 135) were just feeling comfort in the LCD Programming using the 4-bit data lines library functions.
Figure-1: Schematic of the LCD module with Arduino UNO with 8-bit data lines
Figure-2: Instruction Set of the LCD