Since the real world is totally analog, the choice of circuits must depend on what the results need to be and the complexity to get from input to output. The virtue of analog circuits is that they are simple to understand and monitor, and the advantage of digital approaches is that discrete digital circuits are also easy to work with. So discrete digital logic can do a whole lot very reliably and with more immunity to electrical noise. BUT beware, because soon as programmable functioning becomes involved suddenly another skill set is required, and usually there is also expensive hardware required to convert that thought train to functional code, and load it into a system. And then there is that whole arduino world where they use different words for just about everything, so that communication with others is less convenient.

So the bottom line on which to use is that it depends mostly on what needs to be achieved.

I disagree that additional “expensive hardware required...”. In the Arduino world, the only hardware required is a laptop or PC. Which the TS obviously already has since s/he has posted here. Everything else is free.

To use the ATTiny line of microprocessors, I had to buy a programmer. It cost me $16 with tax. Hardly expensive. And Arduino clones can be had cheaply as well.

As for the Arduino using different words for just about everything, I’ll give you that sketch and shield are different. Other microprocessors use their own words as well (particularly wrt add-on modules). But that’s about all. The language is a variant of C. And god knows there’s a dearth of people who understand that. understand

 

Since the real world is totally analog, ...

And maybe the world ISN’T analog. It just can be modeled with analog systems.

The early computers were analog. It took days to set them up for one problem and the next and the next.

Have you read Steven Wolfram’s world, “A New Kind of Science”. In the book, which deeply investigated cellular automata, there is a biology section. He uses CA to model plant growth, ‘growing’ the patterns if a tree, the patterns of a pine cone or the decorations of a sea shell.

Maybe “The Matrix” isn’t so far fetched.

 

And maybe the world ISN’T analog. It just can be modeled with analog systems.

The early computers were analog. It took days to set them up for one problem and the next and the next.

Have you read Steven Wolfram’s world, “A New Kind of Science”. In the book, which deeply investigated cellular automata, there is a biology section. He uses CA to model plant growth, ‘growing’ the patterns if a tree, the patterns of a pine cone or the decorations of a sea shell.

Maybe “The Matrix” isn’t so far fetched.

That book is a mind-bender of a vague and obsolete rabbit hole. If only the world was that simple.