December 03, 2024, 07:37:24 AM

Best book for complete beginner?

Started by ozunasawai4, April 06, 2020, 07:12:02 PM

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ozunasawai4

Im an electrical engineering student so i have some knowledge on electrical components and how they work, I know some C++ coding and how loops work.

I also have downloaded Hackster's arduino course but I also want to study it on a book as well.

Or what do you think is better and from where to start?


JohnS


vtsvetkov

TL;DR:

Get some cheap board, that does not require an external programmer - Arduino is fine.

Books?
Arduino For Dummies - yes, let's face it
K&R C - cool book, the meat of programming;
MISRA C - software development guidelines for the C programming language, even at a beginning stage it is good to get used to good practices

Avoid anything that mentions "21 days" or "7 days"...

##########

Here's my 2 cents on this topic, and it can be applied anywhere:

Start with the shortest book/tutorial first! Books? Books are nice and well structured, but you feed from results. You may have seen this example quite often, it is very frequently used: when you learn to play some instrument, you do not start learning music theory (unless your parents forced you at the ripe old age of 8 to play the oboe) or get bogged down with complex time measures and notes... no, you go ahead and try to play the song as fast as possible, watching youtube tutorials and struggling on, until you can play it for your mates and bitterly disappoint them.

OK back to microelectronics: get an Arduino board, check out some ESP32s, run a blinking led example and keep on increasing the complexity little by little. You want to keep complexity in in the center between 'ok this is too easy I'm bored' and 'wow so hard, I'm never going to reach this level of mastery'.

Books for beginners? Some may claim that they are, but there are none, good books have quality information, and quality information seems 'dry and boring' to beginners. Just dive head first, use google a lot and keep practicing.

Pro tip: after some time - periodically keep re-reading whatever you have read before.

Another tip: have a 'pet project' that you care about and constantly tinker and improve.

Cheers.