Yes. It's a general purpose microcontroller board, programmed to provide GPIO signals via USB.
I prefer to use USB peripherals for my Pi. Peripherals that are recognized as a USB-to-serial adapter can talk to the Pi, or to any desktop PC. This lets me move my peripherals and code (mostly Python) back and forth between platforms, and do the lion's share of debugging on my PC if I want to.
My peripherals are homemade, since I also enjoy playing with microcontrollers, but something like this is nice because you can get it working and start using it without needing a bunch of esoteric development tools. Likewise with that port expander chip from Microchip.
It can be a conceptual hurdle for a beginner to master a bunch of disparate concepts, such as basic wiring, microcontroller programming, and the Raspberry Pi, just to reach "hello world" stage. Starting with a few of those things already done can be a comfort.
I prefer to use USB peripherals for my Pi. Peripherals that are recognized as a USB-to-serial adapter can talk to the Pi, or to any desktop PC. This lets me move my peripherals and code (mostly Python) back and forth between platforms, and do the lion's share of debugging on my PC if I want to.
My peripherals are homemade, since I also enjoy playing with microcontrollers, but something like this is nice because you can get it working and start using it without needing a bunch of esoteric development tools. Likewise with that port expander chip from Microchip.
It can be a conceptual hurdle for a beginner to master a bunch of disparate concepts, such as basic wiring, microcontroller programming, and the Raspberry Pi, just to reach "hello world" stage. Starting with a few of those things already done can be a comfort.