[brianobush]

agreed, the arduino is oversold in and of itself. However it does remove the need for a separate programmer board/aparatus and a simple language. The ease of just using USB is a win along with a mixed community of experts, amateurs and kids. The synergy and accessibility is the main point of the article IMHO.

[atduskgreg]

You got it exactly. I'm not arguing that the Arduino is going to be sitting on office desks or pants pockets everywhere, but that whoever invents the thing that is will have cut their teeth and learned what works on an Arduino.

[hugs]

Arduino is the Python of dev boards in that Python has an explicit goal of "batteries included" -- to include everything you need to be productive right away. Ironically, in the case of Arduino, batteries are technically not included, but that's because you get power directly from USB. :-) But metaphorically, Arduino is as "batteries included" as Python.