I am not a programmer so I can not contribute, but I suggest a alternative to the present IDE.
A graphical programming environment with the option to modify the building blocks with inserted code.
Something for really fast development.
Blocks with i/o connetions to both variables and physical pins containing "if/else/for" and so on.
Even ready made blocks for interfacing with diffrent things like Ethernet and accelerometers and so on.
Or is this to advanced and time consuming for the next generation of Arduino?
This could be of much help for beginners and also for advanced project scontaining a lot of code.
I'm not a supporter of these practices...
I'm not saying that you are wrong, and that it is a bad idea, but I would like to present my view on the matter.
Also, I'm a coder.. so my view is biased, but I do not think it matters too much in this case.
An application in which you can program by dragging visual blocks also requires some learning, and for the simple stuff, it is just as complex.. if not more complex to do it with blocks, since you need an exception for this, an exception for that.. since an if works differently than a for loop, which is again different from a while loop... etc. etc.
Basically, the text editor variant is a bit more straight forward, because you'll just have to assume it requires the bit of text that is in the example, just as you'd need to assume that blocks magically take care of their variables for you.
Now admittedly, for the starter.. it is likely easier to learn a visual programming enviroment over the text editor for medium-difficulty applications, but since this is an embedded application.. it will likely reach the upper limits of the microcontrollers capabilities with the inefficient code generated by the visual programmer (rule of thumb: efficiency is inversed proportionate to generalisation, specialised code is more efficient than generic applicable code).
Something that is easy to overlook...
Some poor sob would have to make the application, and that same poor sob.. or perhaps another poor sob, will have to maintain it :-X
Those poor sobs would undoubtedly have the know-how to program their arduino from the regular application.. this usually causes some form of frustration
While I pretty much completely agree with Imahilus' points for 'production' programming, I actually feel that a visual IDE, in addition to the text based IDE, could be a good thing for the casual and art type users. Where maintaining the application is more about making small changes over, hopefully, a short period of time. Rather than different maintainers and creators working on it over several years.
Rather than different maintainers and creators working on it over several years.
henko and you are obviously not programmers (or at least, you haven't been programming long).
If you write code, someone, somewhere is likely to be maintaining it, long after you are done. In certain rare cases, that poor slob gets to be you after 10-20 years have passed (better hope you used good coding practices and lots of comments - you'll need 'em!).
I am just waiting for the call from a former employer at which I spent almost 10 years developing a custom in-house CRM and ticket tracking system which, when they let me go over six years ago, they said they were going to replace with something better.
Like I wrote before I am not a programmer and agree that everything requires learning no matter if its graphical or not. And of course there have to be some nice men/woman to maintain the application also.
Thanks for the link to eduwear, its something like that I meant!
for now.