The "new" Arduino Pro IDE

[mfalkvidd]

Has anyone tried it? https://blog.arduino.cc/2019/10/18/arduino-pro-ide-alpha-preview-with-advanced-features/

I'm not a fan of Electron-based apps, but maybe this is a step up from the original Arduino IDE?

[NeverDie]

@mfalkvidd No, but realistically speaking, does Arduino have the bench strength, let alone the focused attention, to ever finish it? Plus, where would this leave other platforms that Arduino has nominally adopted, like ARM MBED? Maybe years from now, if ever? Just my impression, but it seems Arduino is spread awfully thin these days. For instance, Arduino announced a number of new "Nano" products a year ago, and, well, what progress have they made with them?

[TRS-80]

@mfalkvidd said in The "new" Arduino Pro IDE:

Has anyone tried it?

@BearWithBeard had mentioned it in his reply in my thread about PlatformIO; I am not sure if he has used it yet or just mentioning he was aware of it.

@mfalkvidd said in The "new" Arduino Pro IDE:

I'm not a fan of Electron-based apps

Eww. Me neither.

Having said that, I do use (and actually like) draw.io (or whatever it's called now) and that is also Electron based. Although in that case it's more like "desktop version of an online service."

Although the more I think about it now, perhaps that is what they are going for here, too?

@mfalkvidd said in The "new" Arduino Pro IDE:

maybe this is a step up from the original Arduino IDE?

I suppose that anything is.

@NeverDie said in The "new" Arduino Pro IDE:

does Arduino have the bench strength, let alone the focused attention, to ever finish it?

You know, part of reason I have bad taste in my mouth about Arduino project as a whole is because of the stunt (at least that one) founder of Arduino tried to pull in cutting out the other founders once they started to become very popular (and make money). I suppose I never recovered from that, and therefore will always be suspicious of any of their initiatives.

I give them a lot of credit for what they accomplished, for open sourcing it, bringing uCs to the masses, lowering prices, which made Nice Things(tm) much more available for everyone (most especially, tinkerers like us). And I fully admit to not keeping abreast of whatever else they have done in the meantime. But once something like that goes down, it tends to stick with you (at least it does me) for quite a long time...

And so forgive me if I am hesitant to get excited about this, or cynically expect it to turn into some "revenue stream" (i.e. "PRO"), or "cloud" product, etc. as to me these people (if they are even still the same people) have already shown their true colors (at least from my point of view). I know this will likely rustle the jimmies of some of "nicer / more polite" people on this forum than myself, but I call 'em like I see 'em.

[Sasquatch]

Still same crap as it was, throws you an error without even a line number to make finding it possible!!!

@TRS-80 arduino didn't lower board prices, aliexpress clone sellers did

[TRS-80]

@Sasquatch said in The "new" Arduino Pro IDE:

arduino didn't lower board prices, aliexpress clone sellers did

Of course. And Chinese will probably copy/clone it anyway sooner or later (if popular enough), even if it was not F/LOSS/H (actually, H - Hardware) design. However Arduino founders deserve credit for liberating the hardware designs (instead of clinging stubbornly to some dinosaur business model). Which was the point I was trying to make. And I like to think had a large part in their success, or rather, success of whole ecosystem (clones included).

[BearWithBeard]

Well, I jump between operating systems a lot, so I'm naturally interested in software than runs on all platforms. In terms of IDEs, that means using Visual Studio Code, even though it's an Electron app, because with it I can do everything I need, from simple text editing, to-do lists, to programming in various languages and with different frameworks. (I can literally feel the eye-roll of some folks for using a product which is both based on Electron and from Microsoft, but oh well ¯\(ツ)/¯. I may have to look into the Jetbrains products.)

Ensuing from this, why would I want to switch to the Arduino Pro IDE? Like most people (I think anyways) who weren't happy with the Arduino IDE, I migrated away, because other IDEs provided tools that the Arduino IDE didn't. And as of yet I don't see the new Pro IDE brining anything new to the table, so I think it will be difficult for them to win those users back.

I've downloaded the Pro IDE earlier this year - I think it was still Alpha 0.0.5 - and at first glance it had a lot of similarities with VS Code. It has the same look and feel, many UI concepts are identical. The config is now a (UI-configurable) JSON file, just like in VS Code. Among others, it uses the same CTRL + P and CTRL + SHIFT + P shortcuts to search for files and commands. Then again, even such basic things like code formatting or even syntax highlighting didn't work at all. And almost a year after its introduction, it's still in an (early?) alpha stage - so I don't know what we should realistically expect from it. I mean, it's definitely a step in the right direction, but they have a looong way to go to be able to compete with other IDEs.

When I first heard about the Pro IDE, I was curious if they would manage to implement an open hardware debugger for AVRs, because as of yet, this is AFAIK still only possible with proprietary Atmel / Microchip hard- and software. But I doubt that this is going to happen.

[TRS-80]

@BearWithBeard said in The "new" Arduino Pro IDE:

Microsoft

Well, if I still remember Arduino founder antics, they have got nothing on Microsoft. It's not for no reason they are shunned by many (including myself). I am not sure how old you are Bear (I suspect a little younger than me) however I still well remember their funding of SCO–Linux lawsuits, Embrace, extend, and extinguish, patent abuse, and on and on and on...

Not picking on you personally, Bear, nor your choices. Just pointing out facts for anyone (perhaps including yourself) who may be unaware that Microsoft have been actively hostile towards the principles of Free/Libre Software for a very, very long time now. Personally I am not "buying" that they suddenly "got religion" with regards to open source, regardless of their huge recent marketing effort to the contrary.

@BearWithBeard said in The "new" Arduino Pro IDE:

I've downloaded the Pro IDE earlier this year - I think it was still Alpha 0.0.5 - and at first glance it had a lot of similarities with VS Code. It has the same look and feel, many UI concepts are identical. The config is now a (UI-configurable) JSON file, just like in VS Code. Among others, it uses the same CTRL + P and CTRL + SHIFT + P shortcuts to search for files and commands. Then again, even such basic things like code formatting or even syntax highlighting didn't work at all. And almost a year after its introduction, it's still in an (early?) alpha stage - so I don't know what we should realistically expect from it. I mean, it's definitely a step in the right direction, but they have a looong way to go to be able to compete with other IDEs.

This is why I pinged you. Personally, I'm not even going to spend any of my valuable time looking into it. But I somewhat expected you had, and also you are more open-minded towards it. So, thanks for the feedback in case anyone is interested.

@BearWithBeard said in The "new" Arduino Pro IDE:

I was curious if they would manage to implement an open hardware debugger for AVRs, because as of yet, this is AFAIK still only possible with proprietary Atmel / Microchip hard- and software. But I doubt that this is going to happen.

I have come across some mentions about "debugging" in PlatformIO but to be honest never really looked into it yet, as so far I haven't needed to (as far as I know). But if this is "hardware" related as you say, I wonder how they are doing that? Maybe just software support, in the case your hardware already supports it I guess </total wild arse speculation >?

[Sasquatch]

@BearWithBeard said in The "new" Arduino Pro IDE:

When I first heard about the Pro IDE, I was curious if they would manage to implement an open hardware debugger for AVRs, because as of yet, this is AFAIK still only possible with proprietary Atmel / Microchip hard- and software. But I doubt that this is going to happen.

AFAIK only IAR uses atmel(sadly Microchip now) hardware for debugging, no other IDE i tried can use dragon or ICE for more than just programming. Expecting Arduino to support hardware debuggers was insanely optimistic.

[NeverDie]

More than most others, I think Adafruit has a coherent hardware strategy with its feathers and featherwings ecosystem of compatible boards. I don't see that Arduino has a comparable strategy, although I wish it did. The adafruit model seems to work: it's for profit, yet everything is open source.

On the software front, I think whatever is next is likely to have at least a minimal RTOS of some kind, because the hardware is advancing quickly to easily support it. Amazon's FreeRTOS at least has Amazon behind it, so it has that going for it. I'm not aware of Arduino having anything like an RTOS to call its its own, although it is making some attempt to "partner" with RTOS venders like ARM MBED.

What do you all think? Any RTOS favorites? Zephyr? MyNewt? CoRTOS? embOS? Something else?

[TRS-80]

@NeverDie said in The "new" Arduino Pro IDE:

it's for profit, yet everything is open source

The "free" in Free Software is referring to freedom, not price (part of what is explained at link). Charging for your work (or for hardware) is in no way inconsistent with the values of F/LOSS.

Or as they say "free as in freedom, not as in free beer!"

Also why the "L" in F/LOSS (for Libre).

Perhaps you are aware of this already, but always there are others reading, too, so I figured it bears repeating...

@NeverDie said in The "new" Arduino Pro IDE:

Amazon's FreeRTOS at least has Amazon behind it

They are another 800 pound gorilla in the room, who I don't trust, either. So them being "behind" something, is not a plus, in my view.

Historically, they have also heavily locked down their e-reader devices. Yet another in a long list of companies who is so obnoxious as to think that they really own the device you paid for with your own hard earned money.

Other than that, I haven't really followed things on the RTOS front, so maybe I will learn something interesting.

[NeverDie]

@TRS-80 Yes, I suppose you're right. I think of freedom and open source going hand in hand, but I suppose it need not. I don't seem to run into that particular issue though, so it wasn't top of mind.

[TRS-80]

@NeverDie said in The "new" Arduino Pro IDE:

I think of freedom and open source going hand in hand

And in most of cases, they do. In fact they are almost about the same things (perhaps with some disagreements about how to get there).

A really good article that I link to often (in fact I think I already did further up thread):

Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software (from point of view of FSF/GNU) makes some really good points about subtle misunderstandings that can arise from commonly used terms, and why they insist (and people like me agree with and follow) the recommendation to use term "Free Software" or "F/LOSS" instead of the more common nowadays "open source."

“Free software.” “Open source.” If it's the same software (or nearly so), does it matter which name you use? Yes, because different words convey different ideas. While a free program by any other name would give you the same freedom today, establishing freedom in a lasting way depends above all on teaching people to value freedom. If you want to help do this, it is essential to speak of “free software.”

[NeverDie]

@TRS-80 That being the case, it would seem you picked a rather ironic moniker for yourself. I don't remember anything about the TRS-80 as being particularly free or open source.

[skywatch]

@NeverDie I remember the TRS-80... Still have the assembler book for it and a TRS-80 clone somewhere in the loft.

Ah, the good old days of cassette tape based software and no viruses!

[scalz]

it's probably a stepup for newcomers, and certainly a late stepup like others said.
Well, I'm very glad with my favorites IDEs, so I'm not interested in it too, even for testing.
One of my top priority when choosing an IDE (like any other tool) is productivity, no matter where the tool comes from. Privacy is important too of course, but not a problem with IDEs.
So I'm fond of Jetbrains, VS and VS Code, and a few free-to-use mcu manufacturers IDE for best xp