Re: [DIYbio] Re: Electronic requirements for redesign of Arduino PCR thermal cycler

> Biology analogy: we can also pipette using straws, and recommend that
> everyone do this (esp years ago when pipettes were expensive), but
> why recommend this today? Buy a real pipette, the real tool.

To borrow that analogy, if straws were as accurate and easier to use for
99% of use cases than micropippettes, you can be damned sure we'd
recommend straws over micropippettes. The fact that straws are,
actually, terrible is the reason we recommend serious people buy
(cheaper, off-brand) micropippettes.

And, for 99% of the stuff a person on this list is likely to want to do
that can be done with a microcontroller at all, arduino is just fine, so
why recommend something with a steeper (read: distracting) learning
curve and longer development times? Because it'll scale better someday?
Because the difference of €5 means you're more likely to get a product
out this year than next, or the year after that, so "scaling" begins to
sound more like "timewasting".

Don't penny-pinch early and don't over-optimise early. If an arduino can
help you ship a thing today instead of tomorrow, always go Arduino. If
you need something bare-metal with ultra-low cost and no code overhead
(i.e. the overhead is put on you in dev-hours instead of being
built-in), sure; get something else.

On 24/03/15 19:40, Jonathan Cline wrote:
> I think the snip below is the clarification which leads to agreement.
> When I say Arduino, I mean AVR hardware based kits. I'm not talking
> about the software, which, since it is compatible with better hardware,
> then the obvious choice is to pick the better hardware. Why use Lego
> when you can easily switch to using real nuts & bolts. The software
> used for Arduino is java based on Processing out of MIT which is still
> good for it's purposes.
>
> Regarding cost, the points mentioned pro/con have been simultaneously on
> both sides of the fence so watch out. Typically pro-Arduino peeps will
> argue for the kits because they don't require purchase of a programmer
> then later will also argue that higher individual cost of boards are
> okay because price is not a concern (the programmer is a single tool,
> one time minimal cost) . Since this circular argument doesn't make
> sense it probably just goes back to the pro-Arduino peeps preferring the
> choice because of the glossy pictures and the perception of community
> (much larger and helpful communities to help with real designs exist,
> simply go find them). The best design choice is to buy a $20 chip
> programmer as a 1-time purchase, and buy some cheap chips and cheap
> copper boards and solder 'em up (this is scalable, longer term, more
> educational) . This was also the recommendation on numerous chip
> discussion lists for anyone serious about building anything more
> interesting than simple blinking led's (it's not just my opinion). But
> even this point is less necessary today anyway with the new hardware
> choices as you've said, especially with built-in USB downloading across
> the board. The choices steering toward using Arduino hardware are simply
> even less valid today.
>
>
> Biology analogy: we can also pipette using straws, and recommend that
> everyone do this (esp years ago when pipettes were expensive), but why
> recommend this today? Buy a real pipette, the real tool.
>
> ## Jonathan Cline
> ## jcline@ieee.org
> ## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
> ########################
>
> On 3/24/15 12:04 PM, Nathan McCorkle wrote:
>> Arduino is also not just the hardware, it's the
>> IDE and community and libraries. People have ported different/better
>> hardware to arduino-land (teensy, MSP430 via Energia, probably others
>> I don't know of).
>

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