BigDumbDinosaur wrote:
The "easier and easier" part is precisely what makes the Raspberry Pi, Arduino, etc., unexciting. Put into culinary terms (I got finished a while ago cooking and serving corned beef and cabbage to family members), working with one of those gadgets is about as exciting as opening and heating a can of soup. You certainly won't learn anything about what is involved in cooking a pot of homemade soup, and certainly will have little appreciation for what went into making that homemade soup flavorful and nourishing. In other words, one can of soup is just like another one and you really have little idea what went into that can. That also describes the Arduino and Pi.
Some folks are more interested in the dinner party than the food they serve. Witness the endless arrays of options for pre-made holiday meals. Someone else here, I think, mentioned they don't make pasta sauce anymore, and are content with a jar from the store.
Dan Moos wrote:
I agree. Arduino and the like aren't that stimulating if you are looking for learning, and the satisfaction of building something complicated.
Electronics are only a portion of the things folks are making with this stuff. The bevy of robots, drones, "animated clothing accessories", home weather stations, etc. etc. The overall project can be complicated, while using off the shelf, high level electronics.
GARTHWILSON wrote:
The RPi has very little general-purpose I/O, which is fine for those with little ambition.
And until the people have exposure to I/O at all, they may not know what missing ambition they have. As they grow, and learn, they may well bump in to the limitations of something like an RPi, and then have to figure out how to go beyond that.
I'm a expert and professional (yes, I consider them distinct) software developer. And I rejoice at end user programming tools. Whether it's Excel macros, or cut and pasting a bunch of scripts together along with Google Maps to make an interesting web page. This stuff is supposed to empower people. As the electronics get cheaper, more powerful, and easier to use, it opens up the domain to more and more people. People who may not have considered using electronics at all in their project, or felt their project was simply inaccessible to them and their level of expertise.
They look at these websites and look at projects, and find that simply wiring up stuff moves them downstream -- with almost complete ignorance of something like Ohm's Law or anything else. Eventually, they either stop, because they're satisfied with what they have, or they try to do something that doesn't work, and that's the gateway to potentially more learning. Only now they might have the basic tools necessary -- a VOM, a soldering iron, basic electronic tools.
Gradual and incremental education, starting with practical, rich, working components, rather than raw resistors, transistors and theory. This let folks become productive quickly. It favors productivity and progress over fundamentals and theory.
At the same, time, it's a valid point to suggest that such high level components may perhaps give people false hope, false success. They may get something to work, but they don't know actually know how or why it works. For many use cases (notably hobbies or other casual uses), that's enough. You're right, they don't know "electronics". But that may not have been their goal in the first place. Rather they wanted to work on something "electronic".