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

On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 10:29 AM, Jonathan Cline <jcline@ieee.org> wrote:
> Hmmmmmmmm
>
> "wastes days of their time " .. starting out with the equivalent of Legos
> might create a fast model prototype but then wastes more time when moving
> from prototype to a more stable build. Requires rebuilding from scratch.

Meh, fail-fast and agile are the current mottos in
engineering/software-development. Refactoring is not seen as a major
impediment. Obviously an engine ECU or ABS system needs more stringent
design guidelines. A smart programmer knows when to hack something
together quickly, and when to optimize.

> Think longer term. Most likely any kit board is a tool which will be reused
> in a new project later which then runs into the typical obstacles and has to

Really? I don't think many people really think much about reusing an
arduino... unless their project failed, most people are of the mindset
"if it ain't broke, don't fix it". In fact, most of what I hear these
days is how people are getting more and more lax because arduinos are
cheaper and cheaper, and using a slightly larger project enclosure box
is no problem for them.

> be replaced with a better kit, creating an upgrade cycle which wastes time.
> Start out with a solid kit first.

Arduino is pretty solid, unless you're complaining that an embedded
system uses object-oriented code (which some embedded designers avoid
like the plague)

>
> "the community is smaller " .. in fact the Arduino community is a drop in
> the bucket, though a vocal and photo-polished one, compared to the larger
> design communities using more professional building blocks.

Maybe it's a drop in the EE bucket, but in the hobbyist/easy-to-use
space it's pretty much king. Not many non-EEs can stand to install
gigabytes of some development environment, wade through
multi-hundred-page specification documents to setup some control
registers... just to get their chip to boot. Programming it might be
similar at some point, but plug-n-play has been a slogan for what, 20
years... it's a desired trait. Even I have had ideas/projects stall
because datasheets for MCUs are so dense, community support is so
poor, example code incomplete, etc... and I've been studying this
space for many years as a determined non-EE hobbyist.

> Note
> "professional design" does not mean complex it only means a little bit of
> homework is necessary and maybe less glossy photo's.

I'm sure there are lots of pros that would say arduinos are OVERKILL
and that a few well-connected discrete hardware ICs would do the job
better, faster, cheaper, lower power, and be hardier.

>
> "less and more reasonable code" .. the code is in a high level language so
> it is likely the same. "copy/paste some ubiquitous code" .. If it is
> ubiquitous then there is nothing specific tying it to Arduino anyway.

Hiding ugly code and things that beginners/scientists don't need to
know is part of the success though. Engineers I work with can't even
handle verbose debug messages in our software's output... these are
highly trained people who are working as EEs, but still have trouble
parsing a few lines of error messages/tracebacks. This is why Apple is
the most profitable company, because their stuff is clean and
intuitive.

>
> It is not necessary to defend your use of Arduino in past projects. Arduino
> is simply not a good recommendation in 2015 for new designs or redesigns.

Again, this is a pretty bad comment. Use what is appropriate for the
job, arduinos are more than overpowered for most applications people
use them for. There are about 5000 analog engineers in the world, and
millions of digital. 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).

> If you're building an automobile today you don't need to use an engine with
> a hand crank. When you designed the DremelFuge you considered the design
> options and settled on an industrialized component with suitable motor, a
> Dremel. You might have evaluated shiny plastic objects from Toys R Us like
> a kiddie toy blender but you smartly passed on these as underpowered. Just
> a little bit of homework up front gives the design significant legs.

Again, no one needs an 8MHz computer to blink christmas lights or even
control thermocycling. If anyone used something faster, it might be
just as open to scrutiny.

>
> I didn't suggest anything about PIC in this thread either so there is no
> need to compare. If you would really like, you can review past opinion from
> the 90s on PIClist regarding why college students or more advanced younger
> dudes should not start or continue projects with the Basic Stamp (PIC based)
> - for same reasons as above: more expensive

I don't see how anyone can really talk about price unless you live in
some country with really bad or expensive postal service... in which
case any integrated circuitry will be about equally hard to come by.
Price isn't a valid point in my opinion outside shipping, because you
can get fully-assembled arduinos for about $3, or $5 if you want it a
few weeks sooner. Seriously, drinks at Starbucks cost more than these
computers.

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