<div dir="auto">I think I remember you are doing this for work, right? In which context maybe a quick end result is worth more than personal enjoyment of the process and personal skill development? Do you find the process enjoyable? Most people don't think of being a project manager as a fulfilling activity worthy of hobby time. <div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">To me the beauty of Arduino and other libraries is that they give you the personal satisfaction of figuring out how to do what you want. Granted a library is usually doing hard work that you don't understand. But there is a consistent abstraction layer and you can gain expertise with using it. In really weird situations you can even dig into the open-source library code for the details. (I too have used Paul's Teensy Audio library and on a few occasions had to dig into the code. It was also well beyond my ability to write, but I was able to understand it well enough to figure out my problem.)</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I think I mentioned my rowing machine project on one of the meetings. I could easily buy a new computer for it. Or I could use a full-featured open-source rowing-machine project. I find it much more satisfying to make my own "from scratch" (though using basic libraries to do a lot of heavy-lifting) even if it is feature-poor compared to the other options. If I had to churn one out for work I would make a completely different calculation about that.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">To me GenAI is the ultimate enshittification of the entire hobby tech industry. Want to debug your AI-generated code? Have to pay a big tech company for more GenAI tokens to analyze it for you, because you don't (and possibly can't) understand how it works. We don't currently pay the real cost either, since everything is subsidized by investment dollars to generate more growth. It will be interesting to see if the cost comes down enough to offset the necessary end of that subsidy.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">When I was a kid, I could make something on the same order of magnitude (in functionality) as the commercially-available software, writing every line of code. By the time my kids came around, that wasn't really possible for PC/console (and later phone) software. However it was still roughly true in the simpler embedded space, with the help of libraries. (Maybe I have simplistic view of this though). With GenAI, I wonder if there is even any point in kids making anything. Just ask the GenAI directly to do the thing you want instead of spending effort in writing software (even with GenAI help) to do it.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I have used GenAI, for example to create a logo for my bowling league. My skills were utterly unmatched with the quality I wanted, and it's not a skill I want to spend time learning. I didn't feel any enjoyment in in the process but I was satisfied with the result (after some additional manual tweaks). And I use it when coding at work. But it seems sad to me to have it used everywhere in places where people could instead be training their own internal LLMs by doing things more directly and making and correcting their own mistakes.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Interested to know what other people think.</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 06:47 Trampas Stern via TriEmbed <<a href="mailto:triembed@triembed.org">triembed@triembed.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">In my personal opinion Arudino has been dying a slow death for years, mainly from then number of bugs in their code and libraries. However it is really falling fast now because AI will be taking over that market area.<div><br><div> In the last ~6 months AI has gotten really good at firmware/software development. I had AI write an entire web app that monitors remote servers data logs and alerts me on failures, I did not write or edit a single line of code. Around 80%-90% of code I develop is AI based now (even embedded), as such I no longer care about the programming language, APIs, etc. </div><div><br></div><div>For example, I now write chip drivers by feeding datasheet to AI where it writes the driver for me, and will not go back to doing it manually ever again. </div><div>Needed FATFS and SD card driver, just told AI to add to project and include test cases to verify it worked. Which it did, and worked on the first try, of course this was Zephyr based project so not a huge lift, but it worked. </div><div>Even Zephyr device trees are insignificant to AI, I don't have to figure out convoluted syntax or setup, I just tell AI what I want. Even had AI write python test cases to run on desktop which verify that Bluetooth worked correctly. </div><div><br></div><div>The point is that when you can ask AI to setup a development container and IDE for your embedded project, then write code and test cases, so there is little need for Arduino. </div><div><br></div><div>I should mention that I was debating on learning Rust for embedded development last year, I choose not to. Specifically, AI is at the point that the programming language is irrelevant. That is AI will be able to translate code from one language to another with little effort. Also it will be able to verify that C/C++ is just as safe as Rust code. As such embedded development will be moving to a job of project management, where you are managing the project requirements, testing and tasking AI with writing code. <br><br>Even on the webserver project AI was having a hard time with javascript component, kept having lots of syntax mistakes. So I told it to write a lint tool to verify its results. So it wrote a javascript lint tool and would run it and fix its own mistakes. Basically AI today is as good as college level intern. That is it makes some dumb mistakes but can be highly productive with the correct "management". <br><br>I see AI technology is much like computers were in the 80s that is everyone could see how they would be use and the advantages of having one on everyone's desk. It will redefine the job market much like computers changed the typing pools at large companies. That is there will be a shift in skills you need for a job towards AI. </div><div><br></div><div>The point is if you are worried about Arudino, instead take some time and try the latest AI using copilot and VSCode, you might find like me that Arudino is insignificant, like a typewriter. </div><div><br></div><div>Trampas</div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Nov 22, 2025 at 1:13\u202fAM Dwight Morgan via TriEmbed <<a href="mailto:triembed@triembed.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">triembed@triembed.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><div dir="ltr">The enshittification of Arduino begins? Qualcomm starts clamping down @itsfoss2<br><br><a href="https://share.google/03WWYzZ9EJkguCpF6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">https://share.google/03WWYzZ9EJkguCpF6</a></div><br id="m_1924525220498666550m_8773699911244053549lineBreakAtBeginningOfSignature"><div dir="ltr">Sent from my iPhone</div></div>_______________________________________________<br>
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