HN has an interesting difference between electronics quality and code quality.
When anything electronic is submitted people are interested and encouraging even if the quality of construction is terrible, like it was built by a drunk monkey.
But when some code / script / stylesheet is submitted you get a mix of the same interest and encouragement, and also some really fierce critique. "My god who wrote that css float, a drunk monkey?"
I prefer the first approach, btw. There are ways of delivering constructive criticism and HN isn't always great at it.
EDIT: FEC / Element 14 are sponsoring a bunch of DIY electronic stuff at the moment. So while he could use a $400 electronics microscope it's in their interest to show him using cheaper stuff that's more available to student tinkerers. Those hand loupes and magnifiers are very cheap and handy for students.
(EDIT: And I'm not saying Ben Heck's builds are bad.)
I think the reason may be twofold. One, for many of us - myself included - hardware stuff is almost magic. Not in the sense that we don't understand it, but in a sense we have close to zero professional experience and "hobby quality" is the best we know how to do.
The other thing is, in programming you can do pretty much anything for free. Whether you want to write scripts when drunk or employ highest industry standards of quality, the only limit is your knowledge (and how much you care). In case of electronics, doing anything professional-grade gets extremely expensive very fast, so all we - the subset of HN for which hardware is just a hobby - can do is hobby-level work.
When anything electronic is submitted people are interested and encouraging even if the quality of construction is terrible, like it was built by a drunk monkey.
But when some code / script / stylesheet is submitted you get a mix of the same interest and encouragement, and also some really fierce critique. "My god who wrote that css float, a drunk monkey?"
I prefer the first approach, btw. There are ways of delivering constructive criticism and HN isn't always great at it.
EDIT: FEC / Element 14 are sponsoring a bunch of DIY electronic stuff at the moment. So while he could use a $400 electronics microscope it's in their interest to show him using cheaper stuff that's more available to student tinkerers. Those hand loupes and magnifiers are very cheap and handy for students.
(EDIT: And I'm not saying Ben Heck's builds are bad.)