One of the things I find paralyzing about electronics is the fact energy is involved. Software just outputs garbage to the terminal if I screw it up. Circuits though? Isn't it possible for components to be literally destroyed, fires started?
Yes, you can start fires with uncontrolled currents. This is what fuses are for. Also what my sibling comment said; start small, blow up small things by making mistakes (like putting a transistor in the wrong way around and pushing several amps through its inherent body diode; we've all been there), and then you'll be confident enough to start playing with actual power electronics (if you want to).
What you'll find though is that, as a result of everyone before you making the same kinds of mistakes, there exists protection circuitry for almost everything you would want to do. For example, Lithium-Ion batteries are quite unsafe if you treat them without the respect they deserve, but that's what e.g. the DW01-P IC is for, and many Li-Ion charging ICs feature NTC thermistor inputs (e.g. the LTC4053) to stop charging if the cell is outside of some safe temperature range.
If you're really worried, a CO2 extinguisher and a bucket of sand go a long way.
As someone who has managed to accidentally and completely fry a Windows install with an unchecked C programme when I started to learn programming - there's still you can screw up using just code.
It would be really hard to start a fire with an Arduino with 5V USB power. You might fry some components, but even then, they usually just stop working (with a little magic smoke if you're lucky, but typically not) and you lose a dollar or two. Don't let a genuine fear of safety issues stop you from tinkering with low-voltage hobby electronics. Stay away from 120/240VAC mains power of course, but an Arduino and the 5VDC from a USB charger is a pretty forgiving environment.
You call it frying some components, I call it finding which of the little black cubes on the Arduino circuit board is the voltage regulator. It gave off such a pretty orange glow :-D
um, what do you think is powering the CPU/GPU combo you are writing software for uses? I guess you missed the period of "releasing the magic smoke" of software. But if you are designing a project that uses enough power to start fires, you've chosen poorly for your starter projects. Most electronics are using 3.3v or 5v while sipping miliamps. Sure, you can smoke a chip that wants 3.3 from feeding it 5v, but if you're designing a project near flammable substances, you're doing it wrong.
One of the things I find paralyzing about electronics is the fact energy is involved. Software just outputs garbage to the terminal if I screw it up. Circuits though? Isn't it possible for components to be literally destroyed, fires started?