Arduinot

I am trying to implement some kind of hobby within my mentality. Don't worry if none of this makes sense.
I remember fiddling about with electrical stuff as a kid trying to figure it out and also back when we first bought a computer I studied a little about writing programs in C. Combining those two semi understandings I got precisely nowhere today. I am sure the world is doing things one way when there is a far better one. I can understand that simple electronic components have to be figured out according to their functions, resistors resist, condensors condense etc, but to get information from the little widget on the right here I have to read and understand a ten page spec sheet and then figure out how to write a program to act as interpreter between it and the microcontroller. It takes us years as babies to interpret the world and interact with it using our corporeal selves, at my age I am not entirely sure I have the time to waste learning to do all of that with external electrons. All complex components should have a simplified set of data which allows them to be interfaced with in one standard communication system. I am sure that would be easy to do if only there was such a standard, currently we are cursed with an ever more complex babel at a microscopic level.
The forums discussing the precise thing I am aiming at, using the same tools (reading temperature to control a device with a DS18B20 and an Arduino board) are almost useless, they give samples of program code, but do not include sufficient documentation on the processes or include samples of output for comparison. Scientific method out the window.
I guess I am expecting too much of my limited knowledge, the horse and cart I use to get around in has just left a load of poop all over the information superhighway. Metaphorically speaking of course.
Next time I take a break from work for this hobby stuff I will resort to pulling thermistors from my scrap box and doing the thing in the analog way.