#240 Time to Say Goodbye to Arduino and Go On to Micropython/ Adafruit Circuitpython?

Python seems to be the fastest growing programming language. It is also widely used to program Raspberry Pis, and it is on the verge to become available on our small microcontrollers. Has the time come to leave the Arduino IDE and go on? Time for a closer look.

Topics covered:
- Language (Micropython/ Adafruit CircuitPython vs C++
- Parts of the Hardware and programming interface (SAMD21/SAMD51)
- Libraries
- Documentation and Community

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[AndreasSpiess]

I am overwhelmed by the number of comments! Thank you very much. I am extremely proud of how many professional programmers are watching this channel and the quality of the discussions. I will not be able to answer all comments, but I read all of them because it is a very good input for the future of this channel. I think I learned more about your thinking in this video than anytime before. This video was triggered by my decision to learn Python on the Raspberry because it is widely used. Then, I thought, let's check if this is also usable on my MCUs. And then I thought I share my findings...

[atinotevuelveaimportar]

When adafruit stops charging 50$ for 5$ hardware I’ll consider getting smth from them.

[arduinoversusevil]

Excellent! Thanks for dispelling my trepidation. Until now I thought: "feather? meh, it's not arduino."

[MartinBgelund]

For me it's not a question of either/or. Both have their rights and advantages in specific situations. Generally I would use Interpreted languages on beefy platforms like RasPi and for rapid prototyping, and compiled languages on low power and small form factors.

[mbirth]

What most commenters here don't seem to get: MicroPython has nothing to do with the Python interpreter on your PC. It is a new implementation optimised for running on microprocessors. In the same way you could argue the Arduino framework is slowing things down and you would be better off programming the microprocessors directly in assembler. Also MicroPython is not slow at all and it brings means to even further optimise your programs by precompiling parts in different ways.

And MicroPython already contains all means to develop programs. No need for any IDE, programmer or whatever. Connect it to your PC, a new drive will pop up and your code is in one or more text files on that drive. You can edit them with any text editor and once you save them and disconnect the board, your changed code is active. There's even a live REPL console to play with your modules and code. So much easier to work with.

[hakanegne]

compiled codes works much more fast than interpereted codes. So Arduino much better than Micropython for realtime projects. and dont forget; you will write code 1 time but microcontroller will run it million times !

[idogendel]

When several tools can do a job, it's obviously wise to pick the one you're most comfortable with. Still, whenever I touch python on a microcontroller I cannot help but feel dirty, it's like keeping an entire PC only for checking the time on the little clock at the corner of the monitor :)

[InformatrIIcks]

I'll say that if you're a beginer maker, go for Arduino. It will allow you to have a better understanding of how code works on the inside. Also, moving from C++ to Python is super easy. The other way around takes a lot of time and re-learning of basic concepts.

[outofthebots]

Something that may interest hard core C programmers is that you can have best of both worlds. If you need a function to be fast you can write it in C then compile it into the firmware to be called by python. All the experienced Micro-Python users are C programmers that like the quick development cycle of python and the fact it require very little lines of code to achieve the same as C.

[texNoz]

I'm too old to change languages. However, I've used both and do have an opinion..
When my wife gets home, I'll ask her what it is.

[XTronical]

I see contrasting comments here and from my personal experience I am not a python fan. But thank you very much for a very informative video and I have learnt several things about developing with it today. Like python or not your video was excellent.

[aucklandtechs]

I love your stuff. It's like choosing a whole art gallery first, and then finding the painting - Not like other videos that take you through a look at each painting first, and then finding out you're in the wrong art gallery.

[Yaxqb]

You got me at the file system and REPL. My goodness, I had forgotten unix philosophy "everything is a file" on embedded. This is great! It lowers the bar considerably if people can use whatever editor they like, without any compilers and such. This is going to be the new thing

[Thor-zhve]

I did my final project for my bachelor in electrical engineering using ESP32 and micropython. It worked very well, and impressed the examiners.

[stumpy]

And so starts the decline of the microcontroller real-time aspects as a Windows style bloat of resources takes over. We'll soon need full blown Cortex M7s to just run a background process and handle a digital IO in real time.

[frmatias]

CONGRATS, I'VE BEEN WATCHING YOUR VIDEOS... IT'S AMAZING HOW TECHNICAL AND SIMPLE IT IS... I HOPE THAT YOU CONTINUE DOING A GOOD JOB HERE.

[akimboslice]

With RAM and speed being the largest issues, I won't be switching. I need RAM for passing and receiving strings from peripherals, and speed for interrupt handling and "real time" response

[DavyBot]

I've been using Espruino recently and while I know there's a lot of strong feelings about Javascript it actually works really well for IO-bound applications. Most of my own embedded projects rely more on IO than on raw processor speed and they usually interface with things over standard protocols like I2C/SPI/UART (which the interpreter has implemented really efficiently) so there's not much benefit to writing everything in C. But there is a lot of benefit in having an interpreter that's designed around an event loop which makes asynchronous IO easier to implement.

[mindaugasvaskevicius]

Arduino low level programing IDE? Flashing LED with 20MHz CPU clock and sending data via uart at low speeds Arduino may do the job. But try running multiple processes in parallel with out "do nothing"(delay) getting in your way when your design reaches real word applications. Try squeezing your design into something like attiny series mcu, where you do not have 20k byte ram or 64-256k flash. Microcontrollers are not microprocessors and they should not be treated as such. My skills as an electronics design engineer ware development in parallel with all of the Arduino hype, but thank God I was shown the difference between a proper design and Arduino shield - include project stuff. Arduino is good for getting attention and getting comfortable with handling electronics, but in my opinion a hobbyist, a maker should know how to use interrupts, how to run multiple processes in parallel, how to design a basic schematic. P.S. delay beyond 20 NOP commands should be frowned upon.

[toastrecon]

So great! I'm excited to learn more about this. My guess on the pronunciation of "Mu" would be that they're looking to have it be like the greek letter "μ", for "micro". Maybe then you'd just pronounce it however that worked in whatever language you spoke. I've heard it pronounced "mew" (rhymes with "you"). Thanks again for making these.