The IDE is a special program running on your computer that allows you to write sketches for the Arduino board in a simple language modeled after the Processing language. The magic happens when you press the button that uploads the sketch to the board: the code that you have written is translated into the C language (which is generally quite hard for a beginner to use), and is passed to the avr-gcc compiler, an important piece of open-source software that makes the final translation into the language understood by the microcontroller. This last step is quite important, because it’s where Arduino makes your life simple by hiding away most of the complexities of programming microcontrollers.
The programming cycle on Arduino is basically as follows:
- Plug your board into a USB port on your computer.
- Write a sketch that will bring the board to life.
- Upload this sketch to the board through the USB connection and wait a couple of seconds for the board to restart.
- Watch as the board executes (performs) the sketch that you wrote.
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