Hello Dan and all,

Quoting somebody on this mail list:

> If you're trying to start up a new hobby, and expect to be using these
> tools every weekend; well, you're going to need that set of $40 tools
> when the $5 set breaks / ruins something / whatever. Might as well
> spend the $40 today instead of $5 today and $40 anyway in 2 months.

So since I can 'turn a wrench' quite frequently as my main 'wheels' are
a quarter of a century old and in the +300,000 miles club, my input is ...

First $40 does NOT buy you that many wrenches today ...

My core set of wrenches both, metric and SAE, are even older than my car and they
be the Craftsmen brand and were mostly purchased and a legacy brick and mortar place
called 'Sears'. Today you can but that brand at Ace hardware.

... But I also have quite a bit of selected 'Harbor Freight' stuff also.

(** my kingdom always needs just one more 'cheap' light source! :-) **)

SO anyways ...

In the virtual (digital) world this **idea** does' NOT also work the same way at all.

You can use FREE (beer or speech) software that meets and exceeds some or most *TOP* dollar
software offerings. Well because that just the way that it is!

I also am also returning to the *NEW* hobby of electronics and the sub-field of micro-controllers
just for the *FUN* of it.

Was helping the other day (this week) to put together some 'Meshtastic' LORA radio units. (six units ... all worked)

and to stay on topic for this mail list to see created and boot-able image (distro) of a electronic lab
based off a light-weight desktop with a working repository of design tools for developing electronic
projects would be very cool.

regards (73),

David
--
David - KC4ZVW
Chuluota, FL

* Atmel * PICmicro * #RASPI * Odroid * Texas Instruments (430) * STmicro (STM32) * Freescale Coldfire * ESP32 * Intel 8052 * Z80 *

but NOT in any real order!!


> Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2024 at 11:09 AM
> From: "Dan Purgert via Dng" <dng@???>
> To: dng@???
> Subject: Re: [DNG] Help needed - - running into issues with python and its tools

> On Aug 07, 2024, o1bigtenor via Dng wrote:

> Depends on which area(s) of "electronics" you're talking about. Your
> specific example of "some microcontroller with a handful of sensors" is
> certainly just "programming the microcontroller" when it comes to
> Python.

>>> If the latter, just learn C(++) / Arduino. You're going to have to at
>>> some point, so might as well just do it now.

>>> Why - - -

>> If that were truly my thinking I would have to be running M$ Win - - -
>> it is the predominant system you know.

> Think of it from "real" things -- A Harbor Freight (or equivalent
> "discount retailer" type store) set of tools for $5 vs. "Lifetime
> Warranty Brand" for $40 (but otherwise "the same set" in quantity / size
> option / etc).

> If you need the tools for a random one-off job, as long as the tool will
> work, there's no reason to not just get the cheap set. Who really cares
> if the tooling is soft metal, or is a little over/undersized for
> whatever it's supposed to be doing, etc. It'll last long enough to get
> ONE job done (or well, a couple, but you get the idea).

> If you're trying to start up a new hobby, and expect to be using these
> tools every weekend; well, you're going to need that set of $40 tools
> when the $5 set breaks / ruins something / whatever. Might as well
> spend the $40 today instead of $5 today and $40 anyway in 2 months.