Programming for the Arduino - Arduino Sketches: Tools and Techniques for Programming Wizardry - page 26

Arduino developed all the tools required to get straight to work. With a
different embedded system, you may have to make a choice of an IDE, install
a compiler, and sometimes even a l asher, and spend precious hours setting
up the system. With Arduino, this isn't the case; everything is delivered in a
simple package and contains everything needed, from writing your programs
to l ashing the i nal binary i le.
An Arduino program is known as a sketch . There are several dei nitions of
the word sketch such as a brief literary composition or a brief musical composi-
tion. Whatever your preference, an Arduino sketch is like a work of art; you,
the artist, gather and assemble elements to create your masterpiece. Google X
engineer Jeremy Blum, author of the topic Exploring Arduino (Wiley, 2013), said,
I believe that creative engineering is indistinguishable from fine artwork.
The Arduino will be your canvas; you are on your way to making something
amazing using sketches and electronics. Your only limitation will be your
imagination.
Installing Your Environment
The i rst thing that you need to do is to install the Arduino IDE. The Arduino
IDE is a fully integrated piece of software written in Java. Java can run on mul-
tiple platforms, and the IDE is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
You can get the Arduino IDE free of charge at the Arduino website:
http://arduino.cc/en/main/software
On this page, you will most likely have several options. The latest stable ver-
sion will always be listed i rst. Next, any beta versions available will be listed.
Beta versions are test versions that might not be up to the quality of a i nished
version but that add functionality; it will be up to you to decide if you want
to use it. Beta versions sometimes support more hardware, and if you use the
latest Arduino boards, you might not have a choice.
Also listed on the site are nightly builds and builds for specii c hardware.
Nightly builds are installers that are generated every night that contain the
latest updates but may in some rare cases also have bugs. Specii c builds are
builds created for a single board in mind. At the time of writing, there is an
IDE available for the Intel Galileo, an Arduino compatible board designed and
manufactured by Intel that does not use the same compiler.