I’d like to experiment programming an Arduino device, something I never tried (so I’m posting in Getting Started).
I’ve searched in this forum for whether Xojo works with Arduino; I know Raspberry is supported, but since I know next to nothing about these boards, I’m wondering whether Arduino is included in this support.
The forum’s search is misleading, as it appears Arduino wasn’t supported in 2020, but there seems to be threads suggesting it was done later (or parts of it).
Can one program for Arduino in the current version of Xojo?
No. Arduino is a programmable micro controller, not a full computer, so nothing that Xojo targets with its supported platforms. Best is to use their IDE (which is C based), and it looks like there is a micro Python language working with some cards too.
Arduino is a microcontroller, with its own IDE which is also quite good. The language is easy to understand and well-documented. You cannot use Xojo to program the Arduino as they are completely different animals. Arduino is a top to bottom code execution in near real time (no OOP) and is not event driven like Xojo.
However, I do use both extensively and all of my UI is done in Xojo and the Arduino communicates with Xojo, using serial connection, which works great. I have several data acquisition projects done with Arduino capturing data, sending to Xojo to be saved into databases.
its more the time you need to search for basic things how to implement, especially working with strings, formatting output, setup web server, connect to network, realtime clock update, bad delivery of serial data.
everything is much built on public librarys where you need the exactly version and proper examples.
one of the stumbling block i faced was an issue to upload the app to device via usb. (game of luck+ bug in ide)
generally troubleshooting after source code adjustment need steady nerves.
The learning curve is actually not bad at all. The Arduino IDE is based on C++, which is much more feature rich than C, and the Arduino library that is part of the IDE builds on top of that and really makes interacting with the hardware very easy. Don’t let the fact that deep down it all boils down to C discourage you from giving it a try. You’ll get a hang of it pretty quickly, and it’s a lot of fun.
Horses for courses. Arduino targets a microcontroller with limited resources. The lack of resource means it will never do high level work loads like running web servers, network stacks and rich UIs, easily or well. If you want to read a sensor or create a battery operated embedded device though, the Arduino ecosystem makes it a lot easier than programming hardware directly. Arduino has some similarity with Xojo, in so far as it is a cross platform single threaded framework with a syntax compatible with OOP techniques. C++ has more OOP features than even Xojo.
Yes but you can always go into the library source code and fix the bug yourself. With Xojo you could be waiting years.
The way I put it to our work experience students is. If you want to impress your school chums, take a look at Xojo. If you want to learn how a computer actually works, pick up an Arduino.