Embedded Computing
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      • Texas Instruments Workshops
      • Embedded Systems: Shape The World — MOOC edX UTAustinX UT.6.02x
      • Embedded Systems - Shape The World: Microcontroller Input/Output — MOOC edX UTAustinX UT.6.10x
      • Embedded Systems - Shape The World: Multi-Threaded Interfacing — MOOC edX UTAustinX UT.6.20x
      • Real-Time Bluetooth Networks: Shape the World — MOOC edX UTAustinX UT.RTBN.12.01x
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    • IoT Projects >
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      • SensorTag to Blynk Using Node-RED
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    • AI Projects >
      • Colour Recognition with Neural Network
    • Other Projects >
      • Portable Particulate​ Matter Monitor
      • FRAM-based E-Paper Screen Controller
      • General Purpose 3.5" Screen
      • Colour Recognition with Neural Network
      • A Low Power Weather Station
      • Digital Volt-Amp-Watt Meter
      • Mobile Measurement with LCD Display
      • Screen with SRAM for GUI
      • Volt-Amp-Watt-Meter for Grove
      • Multi-Touch Project with CapTIvate

Looking for a Better IDE

With more powerful boards sporting 32-bit micro-controllers, with more complex projects involving classes and libraries, a more powerful IDE is badly needed.

Also, dealing with different boards means having as many IDEs as boards, even if all IDEs are Processing-based Wiring derived Arduino-like, the only difference being the colour of the interface!

After having played with different boards platforms for a while, I was looking for one single IDE and a better one.

I gave a try to cross-platform IDEs like Eclipse, NetBeans and Qt, but wasn't able to go far away. As a Mac user, I considered Xcode.
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embedXcode on macOS
Visual Micro on Windows

embedXcode on macOS

Xcode is the official IDE from Apple for Mac OS X. It features all the modern niceties and a very nice interface. 

The embedXcode template allows to use Xcode to develop for the most popular boards based on the Wiring / Arduino framework, including
Adafruit, ArduCAM, Arduino, chipKIT and PICadillo, DFRobot, Digistump, ESP8266 and NodeMCU, Glowdeck, Intel Galileo and Edison, LaunchPad, LightBlue Bean, Little Robot Friends, Maple, MediaTek LinkIt, Microduino, Moteino, panStamp, Particle, RedBear, RFduino, Robotis, Simblee, Teensy, TinyCircuits, Udoo Neo and Wiring boards. 

The embedXcode+ template adds the object-oriented Cosa framework for AVR-based boards, the Yocto native applications and MCU programs on the Intel Edison board. embedXcode+ also brings self-documentation and external debugging.
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Visual Micro on Windows

Just like embedXcode for Xcode on Mac OS X, Visual Micro is a plug-in for Visual Studio 2010 and 2012 on Windows. Visual Micro currently supports Arduino 0023 and 1.0 frameworks.

All the power and comfort provided by Visual Studio help developing better Arduino sketches and faster.

But Visual Micro goes further, as it includes a much asked for feature, an integrated software-based debugger.

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Posted: 
Updated: Mar 03, 2017

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