alt Hacker News> Besides that, IMO hiding hardware details from the developer is the worst thing about Arduino. The hardware details matter and it's far too easy to get footgunned by some implementation detail hidden from you.
Wasn't Arduino not for developers, but for hobbyists? People who aren't super technical but want to do something neat with basic microcontroller functionality?
You're complaint kinda seems like saying "BASIC isn't great language, it's got a lot of problems when used for enterprise applications." It's not really meant for that.
IMO Mbed was just as easy for hobbyists but had a far better designed API that could support professional work as well. Arduino is just badly designed.
Unfortunately the Mbed guys stuck to their crap web-based IDE for waaaay too long, and when they finally realised it couldn't cut it, they pivoted to Yotto, which was a terrible Python based build too. When that failed they finally made Mbed Studio which was based on Theia (same as Arduino is now) but by then it was too late.
I think they also lacked an obvious "start with this" board like the Arduino Duo.
I think if they have blessed one of the Neutrino boards (which were incredibly cheap and powerful compared to Arduino) with their branding, and switched to Theia like 5 years earlier they might have had a chance.
Real shame because it really was a far superior software system.