Is Arduino Programming Language Different from Standard C? Which Should I Learn First?

Hi AllI have done uP and uC programming in assembler in the old Z80 days and more recently with Basic on Picaxes.  But I have never learned C and I feel that's a big gap in my knowledge and abilities.I recently got on special (and then even better with a voucher I won) a book from Elektor Magazine called "C programming with Arduino".  I have an Arduino knocking around and also a plethora of other boards.  I know the native Arduino programming environment is not pure C and I figure if I am going to learn something it might as well be something that I can use as widely as possible.  The book also makes this point. They use Arduino because they're widely available and cheap and available in various types and capabilities, and programs are easily transferable to almost any AVR chip, and the skills to most uC chips.I'd have to get or make an AVR programmer to do this (it needs ICSP rather than USB like Arduino) but that's a pretty minor consideration.  But am I right to go this route?  Or is Arduino programming close enough to C that it won't make much difference?Or should I forget C and learn Python rather? (that would limit the boards I can work with again though??)

Hi David,Second time of writing this as the first effort disappeared into the lost world of electrons on this site.I would first say that C is not a hard language to learn, but it is a hard language to understand when written by so called experts!!!Because it is a fairly old language the origional IDE's and micro's were heavily memory constrained. This has meant that much of the C code you look at is not well documented on a line by line basis and some of the one line code snippets can be totally unintelligible to the majority of people, as to how the code works.  This can happen in any code language and is very bad practice , In my opinion.I have been writing code for Atmel chip Arduino development boards in Pascal, Basic and C compilers for as nearly as long as the Arduino boards have been sold, some of my Arduino boards are still (RS232). With rock solid development boards, you can even write in C using Atmel Studio which is free.A nice C IDE is MikroElektronika and they have a free evaluation code limited version.I did not come to C early or well , until I started using the Cypress PSoC development boards (which are lower in price than many Arduino offerings). However the Cypress Creator IDE is great to learn C on and the big bonus is that you get a big lump of FPGA fabric to play with as well.  With the backing of programmable hardware and good processor software I am a very happy Crusty. Conrad

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Hi Crusty, thanks for that.  I'm SOOO tempted to go BASIC on AVRs but I need to get out of my rut / comfort zone.  The book I got touts Atmel Studio for learning C and it looks good.  If I can make an ICSP programmer myself I will, but if not they're not pricey.One of the boards I have lying around is a PSOC4  and I have several others for which C environments are available, so all the more reason to go this route.As I always say, I just need to win the Lotto and retire and have time for all the interesting stuff.....Thanks again / Cheers / David

Hello Mike,
Thanks for your time and trouble.  Sounds like there's not much in it, but I might go the C route (rather than Arduino) and see how I go.  I have some MSP430 and PSOC boards around as well.   Sounds like C would suit me better than Python at the moment though I do have an STM32 board around as well.  Linux / C on desktop is another "wanna do" but see my comments to Crusty above on the time factor....Thanks again / cheers // David

David,I've done quite a bit of programming in C/C++ as well as some in Arduino. While Mike is correct that Arduino syntax follows the rules of C/C++, there is a lot that is hidden by the IDE to make it easier for hobbyists to understand.
Atmel Studio is good for learning and if you have a book that recommends it, so much the better. Sometimes it seems that half the battle is figuring out how to use the IDE and getting the programmer to download the code to the chip.
Good luckElizabeth

Hi Elizabeth...thanks for that.  I've just been looking at ISP programmers and there's one that I can get from a retailer in town (might be an order delay but I have enough stuff to keep me out of mischief till XMAS.. :-)If I can get that going I'll be half way there it seems...Thanks  again / Cheers / David

I recommend learning C, as C is useable almost everywhere. Since 1973, I have used C and assembler and later VHDL (and Ada for one project when Ada was new).

Thanks Peter... that seems to be the general opinion so C it will be.  I am off for a week over Xmas so will try get into it then.  Thanks again, and have a good Christmas!

David,If you want to learn the basics of C programming on the PC, you can download a free edition of Visual C from Microsoft for personal use, https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/ . Good for learning C and debugging without needing target hardware.I've been using C for microcontrollers, either on the AVR/Arduino platform or Microchip PIC for 9 years now, would not go back to assembler. Being able to write if/while/for statements is soo much nicer than similar code in assembler
Ian

Ian thanks - I do have Visual Studio and have dabbled in Visual Basic, but might try the C there as well.Having done assembler on the older uPs (Z80 etc) I'd agree that the higher level languages do make life a LOT easier.