Hi all! Yes, in the near future I hope to start some microcontroller classes of my own. I first need to gauge what type of topics are in demand, but perhaps that’s better as a separate thread.
Arduino and its IDE always seems to be a debated topic. It very appealing to be beginner as it completely encapsulates the build environment. Not many beginners have the patience and prerequisite knowledge to screw around with Makefiles, gcc/mingw, setting up a linux environment. It doesn’t make sense to spend hours learning and setting up a build system if your end goal is to just blink some LEDs on a timer or send some MQTT packets over WiFi. It’s all about using the right tool for the job. Arduino and MicroPython will cover a wide variety of use cases for common hobby projects.
Now as soon as you want to process thousands of ADC samples or have any form of real-time constraints, stuff like Arduino IDE and MicroPython become inadequate.