I am currently using arduino to play around and to also get my hexapod going but I am running into technicalities due to my inexperience with C++. So I know that there is netduino and fez panda 2 .net micro framework based controllers out there and it has me very interested in them and I am thinking about investing in one of them. Reason being that I am very experienced with .net and c# so I figured that programming wise I could get farther and have more success with the .net based controllers if I went with one of them.
I noticed that the netduino plus 2 is quite a bit faster in processor speed then the fez panda 2 but I also noticed that the panda has some neat modules/shields and things that go with it. I am unsure as which one to go with is best. I would like to eventually try all kinds of things and play around a lot with shields and projects so I would love to use the touch display screens that panda has. I also am not sure how many arduino shields are compatiable with netduino and if that is the best route. So in your opinion, what would be best and what is supported more and has more resources? Is the extra speed of the netduino over the panda gonna matter that much? I do like the SD card option built into the fez panda and there are lots of pins on the right side of the board. I basically just need more direction, info, and advice on choosing between these both seemingly awesome controllers.
Another question, I am begining to see of course there are alot of similarities between the standard native c++ on a computer compared to arduino. Does arduino basically use the same or pretty close to the same C++ langauge and libraries that you would use for native standard C++ code on a computer? I have seen people use the header files that I have seen before when I dabbled around C++ on the computer. I have seen stdafx.h and things like that. If so then learning standard C++ on the computer for regular native development could help me alot with arduino. Does this ring true?
I have done some work with the FEZ Domino, FEZ Panda and FEZ Panda II and I think they are great little microcontrollers. I have even built my own system around the USBizi100 chipset and it works great.
I think it all boils down to what you need your microcontroller to do. If all you need doing is read a ping sensor and move some motors, then Arduino is probably the right choice. But if you need something more complex like communicating on a couple of UARTS, R/W to an SD card and proper string handling. Then NETMF is a way better choice.
OK so there is a performance penalty by running managed C# code but for the FEZ Panda you can write your own unmanaged C++ code for those (if any) ultra-fast functions.
So I would say, try the Panda out. You will learn more and have fun doing it.
