Pico Development Could be a Little Easier...
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2023 4:47 am
I understand the Raspberry Pi Foundation's motivation to have people develop Pico software on a Raspberry Pi. If I were in their shoes, I'd do the same. However, if you're going to offer Windows (and macOS) development systems as well (to compete with Arduino), you really ought to have an automated install system that actually works. It took me a whole day and about six different tries (including scrubbing a Windows VM a couple of times and starting over from scratch) before I was able to get all the tools installed and working properly (getting openocd to download code to a PicoProbe was a real challenge). Now I'm not exactly an expert Windows system administrator, but I have been doing this kind of stuff since the days of Windows 3. I feel sorry for an absolute beginner who tries to do this.
I realize that a decent Pi 4 or 400 system is well under $100, but some people really don't want to have to leave the comfort of the machine they're used to using (in my case, I can handle Windows, Linux/Ubuntu, or macOS running on my iMac Pro). Pi machines are reasonably competent, but they're still a 1.5 GHz ARM CPU that a modern Intel machine runs circles around (especially when considering the SD card/main drive performance). Most people would prefer to work on their "real" machines rather than a Pi for development work.
I probably would have given up and stuck with using a Pi were it not for the fact that I'm writing a book on this subject; so I have to get the installation working on all four OSes (PiOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows). macOS is next, and my experiences trying to get MS Visual Code running with the Pico Development Suite (no such luck so far) have got me concerned.
I realize that macOS and Windows development is not their strong suite, but surely the Pi folks could hire some contractor to get these development tools functional. Until that day arrives, normal people are going to stick with Arduino.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
I realize that a decent Pi 4 or 400 system is well under $100, but some people really don't want to have to leave the comfort of the machine they're used to using (in my case, I can handle Windows, Linux/Ubuntu, or macOS running on my iMac Pro). Pi machines are reasonably competent, but they're still a 1.5 GHz ARM CPU that a modern Intel machine runs circles around (especially when considering the SD card/main drive performance). Most people would prefer to work on their "real" machines rather than a Pi for development work.
I probably would have given up and stuck with using a Pi were it not for the fact that I'm writing a book on this subject; so I have to get the installation working on all four OSes (PiOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows). macOS is next, and my experiences trying to get MS Visual Code running with the Pico Development Suite (no such luck so far) have got me concerned.
I realize that macOS and Windows development is not their strong suite, but surely the Pi folks could hire some contractor to get these development tools functional. Until that day arrives, normal people are going to stick with Arduino.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde