Is the arduino language a valid solution to make aftermarket products?

[ashleyvanlaer]

I'm making a paper where I research the best way or the apropriate way to make product with the ESP32 chip that can go to market. Knowing that the Arduino code that you upload to the ESP32 is lighter than micropython. Is it the best for consumer based product? Why would it? Why wouldn't?

[ESP_Sprite]

It's as much a 'valid solution' as it is to write it in anything else; if you, as a company, decide that the absolute best way to create a product is to write out Xtensa assembly and manually poke that into the flash chips of each product you make, then that is a valid solution. Is it a common solution? No, it isn't, but depending on what the company is trying to achieve, it certainly can be a valid one. It's all about the advantages of the way you choose being larger than the risks and problems you incur.

Syntactic nitpicking aside, I do think it depends on the programmer(s) you have. Basically, the Arduino platform isn't much more than a C++ compiler, an API, and a bunch of libraries floating around that are 'arduino-compatible'. For the ESP32 specific, I do believe we have a solid foundation, as in the C++ compiler and the basic APIs you get from us are tested and stable. With that as a starting point, the risk unique to the Arduino environment is that because of it's low level of entry, you get a large range of programmers who say they're fluent in it: from people who just know that digitalWrite() turns on an LED to people who are experts at C++ and use the Arduino environment to easily express themselves there. This not only goes for your own programmers; it also goes for the libraries you use.

So all in all, I think it's a situation where you get out what you put in. If you use Arduino as a kludge because you don't fully grasp the intrinsics of embedded programming but Arduino still allows you to whip something up, you're going to get stumped if something comes up in an user situation you didn't predict, and because of lack of experience you will fail to predict a lot of those those situations. On the other hand, if you use the Arduino environment as an easy way to write well-formed C++, you're familiar with embedded programming and you have the ability to vet external libraries as well, I don't think Arduino is a worse choice than anything else.