[dtengineering]

I'm really a fan of PIC microcontrollers, particularly when used with the PICKIT programmers and Great Cow Graphical Basic (for beginners) or C for more advanced programmers.

That said, after over a decade of using PICs with my students, I have switched to the Arduino platform. From a hardware perspective (separation of the USB programmer from the chip)... and even a software perspective (step-by-step debugging), I've got a pile of arguments why just using PICs was a technically better choice.

But the Arduino wins hands-down in the community aspect. There is just so much information available on Arduinos, and projects built around Arduinos, that I had to embrace them.

And you know... it worked out pretty well. For whatever reason my students achieved more with Arduinos than they did with the PICs... perhaps because they had heard of them and had heard that they were "easier to use" than other microcontrollers.

They aren't, really... but that's what they believe.

So I'll say, "embrace conformity, and go Arduino".

Jason

P.S. No, Arduino affictionados, I'm not saying the Arduino has bad software/hardware... I just prefer the technical aspects of the PIC microcontrollers as a learning platform.