Arduino Libraries Rant

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Gregski
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Arduino Libraries Rant

Post by Gregski »

I can script and do some basic programming, but what frustrates me is the insanity of Arduino libraries, today I found yet another location for them,

C:\Users\Greg\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\

yeah this is yet another "default" location

so now there is three places they can live, I was pulling out my hair wondering how can a Sketch "work" ie Verify and Upload, call it compile when I am completely missing an included library, well add to that the fact that Windows 10 file search is absolutely horrid and you have yourself a perfect mess

so I went to https://www.voidtools.com/ and downloaded their tiny search called Everything and it finds files on Windows that Windows can't find, totally amazing, it's like going to HP's website and not being able to find a thing and then Googling it and finding it on HP's website, ha ha

then you have the silly color coding (yeah red or call it orange = good) sure ok that's exactly how the color alert system works, ha ha, but whatever why are some libraries orange and some bold orange, found out that depends on some arbitrary key word file that some library authors include and some don't bother, so how official is that [deep breath] so you can have a regular black color include library ie not orange not bold that completely works completely functions, who knew?

any of youz experiences what I'm going through with Arduino?
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Re: Arduino Libraries Rant

Post by Bigpie »

Yes, it's a nightmare. I use PlatformIO now for Arduino stuff. The library version management is much better.
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Re: Arduino Libraries Rant

Post by ZooKeeper »

As a hobbyist, not even a competent one in some regards, I got so frustrated with the Arduino cr@p hiding everywhere I went back to building only Python based electronics projects. This despite the fact they take more resources and are slower to execute.
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Re: Arduino Libraries Rant

Post by jon volk »

Arduino framework is a good gateway drug. I have no regrets about forcing myself to learn C. I also find it easier to find where something is broken than slogging through layers of libraries that may or may not be completely functional. I can stomach spending a day chasing my own screw up, but someone else’s is enraging.
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Re: Arduino Libraries Rant

Post by Gregski »

thank you for reading and especially those who echoed my sentiments, strength in numbers ha ha
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Re: Arduino Libraries Rant

Post by mpgMike »

I looked into Arduino a couple of times, but I like the control of using just the processor itself. I work with the PIC line. Microchip now has a line of Nano boards that allow you to interface the PIC processor like you would an Arduino.

The PIC community suffers its own challenges with Microchip Code Configurator (MCC for short). It's bloated, slow, and sometimes just plain wrong. Also, the legacy MLL libraries usually use the older C89 syntax and won't compile on the latest IDE using C99. Oh, and recently they abandoned the decades-old MPASM (assembly language compiler) in favor of pic-as (pronounced PIC-Ass), which pretty much nobody likes.

Unless you take the time to learn the intricacies of the programming language and process, you just have to work with what's out there.
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Re: Arduino Libraries Rant

Post by Gregski »

is it too late to rename this thread just to Arduino Rant ha ha

so I just discovered the hell that is COM port maintenance, say you are porting something from one USB tethered card to another well if one card is recognized on COM Port 8 and the other on COM Port 9 you may need to close Arduino IDE and re launch it, you can't just toggle the COM ports like a normal human being, can you say try turning it off and on again!

Image
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Re: Arduino Errors Rant

Post by Gregski »

Arduino errors, collect 'em all

best part is this worked perfectly 2 seconds ago
COM port error.jpg
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Re: Arduino Libraries Rant

Post by P.S.Mangelsdorf »

What is absolutely wonderful is when you want to borrow someone's code from Github, but they include a library, that links to a library, that links to a library, that links to a library, that links to a library that no longer exists. And I'm too software illiterate to recreate the missing info.
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Re: Arduino Rant

Post by Gregski »

P.S.Mangelsdorf wrote: Mon Nov 29, 2021 10:31 pm What is absolutely wonderful is when you want to borrow someone's code from Github, but they include a library, that links to a library, that links to a library, that links to a library, that links to a library that no longer exists. And I'm too software illiterate to recreate the missing info.
ah yes absolutely love it, also when they don't declare\include\define all their libraries at the very tippy top of the Arduino sketch but bury them deep inside their code with naturally zero internal documentation - good times!
"I don't need to understand how it works, I just need to understand how to make it work!" ~ EV Greg
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