Re:Arduino raises $22M Series B round
by Dork1234 on Thursday September 07, 2023 @11:21AM
(#37420260)
What is the difference between PlatformIO and something you use to develop for an Embedded platform? To me it seems PlatformIO is just a wrapper around the same command-line tools used by other companies.
It gives a consistent CLI, which can be wrapped easily by e.g. VScode. It also gives a reasonable cross platform config and library management.
Re:Arduino raises $22M Series B round
by flaviut on Thursday September 07, 2023 @03:10PM
(#37424045)
Installing toolchains on Windows is a huge pain, and installing the a consistent version of toolchains across platforms is also hard.
Platformio is a package manager for embedded systems
Re:Arduino raises $22M Series B round
by HeyLaughingBoy on Thursday September 07, 2023 @04:41PM
(#37425278)
> just a wrapper
That phrase encompasses a huge amount of value. VS Code+PlatformIO is free but I would happily pay for it. I was already paying for an Arduino Visual Studio plugin (Visual Micros) before I learned about it.
I honestly don't see how such strategies work long-term though. As a former embedded SW engineer, the Arduino IDE seems very toy-like - which is excellent for people just starting out, but not something a company developing an embedded product is likely to use. I think PlatformIO is similar but I have only tried that once.
If these companies try to get vendors to pay them to support their boards, or try to start charging users directly, I really think that the hobby community will move on and someone will fork or create their own solution, and the whole cycle will start again.