Using johnny five vs arduino ide (C/C++ subset) for an arduino project

[naazy]

I struggled to understand the pros/cons of using Johnny five vs the Arduino IDE when I first started the decibel metter so thought I'd jot this down:

Johnny five

Pros

• written in JS

Cons

• Not as many tutorials
• More effort to get setup - you have to upload a firmata file from the arduino ide to the arduino and then download johnny-five/node etc
• A node script needs to be run on the arduino either by being connected to a computer or raspberry pi or via wifi.

Arduino IDE

Pros

• language is actually pretty easy to understand
• lots of tutorials
• quick to get set up - you just need the arduino IDE
• literally just upload your sketch file to the arduino and you're good to go. (No need to connect anything to it to run the script)
• you are instantly told when uploading the file to the arduino if there is an error in the code so I think no run time exceptions

Cons

• subset of C/C++ so potentially more to get to grips with

I was initially drawn to Johnny-Five because it is written in Javascript. However I think the subset of code that you actually need to use for most simple projects is so small that getting up to grips with C/C++ is not a big deal and ends up being relatively easy due to all the tutorials out there. I think the simplicity of just being able to upload the code directly to the arduino makes using the Arduino IDE a clear winner for me.

[nelsonic]

http://nerves-project.org

[iteles]

This would probably be a good little .md file in this repo 👍