5 ms·

Its slightly ironic that this article "for beginners" is filled with obscure acronyms he doesn't define (UART, BOM, BLE...).

tptacek 10y ago
A more productive way to make this point is to simply ask what the terms mean. UART is a programmable serial interface; it usually refers to the kind of serial you speak to peripherals in the outside world, as opposed to something like SPI, which is serial spoken to components on the same board. BOM is "bill of materials". It's the catalog and price of all the components needed to ship an actual product. If your chip doesn't have an RTC (clock), and you need to buy another part to provide it, that adds to your BOM. BLE is Bluetooth Low Energy.
- maxander 10y ago
  Its all readily googlable, certainly. My point was that its poor practice when writing a piece aimed at introducing people to a subject; if they have to go to google every few lines to see what something means, that distracts attention from what the article is actually trying to convey. For that matter, they could just as easily google for a different article.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    The author should have used this shameless plug of mine: https://skorokithakis.github.io/expounder/ https://skorokithakis.github.io/expounder/
  - skrebbel 10y ago
    Your confusion stems from what kind of beginner the author means. You read it as "total beginner to anything vaguely related to microcontroller programmer". I assume the authors means it as "has programmed stuff with microcontrollers before but never made a hardware design from scratch yet". After all, picking a microcontroller is a design/architecture choice more than a programming choice.
    - maxander 10y ago
      Well, then there's another term he ought to define! :D I've done several projects using various flavours of Arduinos and Pis, but that sort of hobbyist-maker-level experience hasn't lead me to encounter an acronym for "Bill of Materials."
      - wolf550e 10y ago
        Few people have seriously contemplated ordering the manufacturing of a small run of something they themselves designed. More people have seen the term BOM when reading estimates of how much it costs big brands to manufacture a smartphone or a game console in industry publications or even in the more technically-oriented consumer reviews.
- qb45 10y ago
  > A more productive way to make this point is to simply ask what the terms mean. It depends. If you know what they mean but want to point TFA's deficiency, OP's post is the way to go :)

tptacek 10y ago

A more productive way to make this point is to simply ask what the terms mean. UART is a programmable serial interface; it usually refers to the kind of serial you speak to peripherals in the outside world, as opposed to something like SPI, which is serial spoken to components on the same board. BOM is "bill of materials". It's the catalog and price of all the components needed to ship an actual product. If your chip doesn't have an RTC (clock), and you need to buy another part to provide it, that adds to your BOM. BLE is Bluetooth Low Energy.

maxander 10y ago
Its all readily googlable, certainly. My point was that its poor practice when writing a piece aimed at introducing people to a subject; if they have to go to google every few lines to see what something means, that distracts attention from what the article is actually trying to convey. For that matter, they could just as easily google for a different article.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  The author should have used this shameless plug of mine: https://skorokithakis.github.io/expounder/ https://skorokithakis.github.io/expounder/
- skrebbel 10y ago
  Your confusion stems from what kind of beginner the author means. You read it as "total beginner to anything vaguely related to microcontroller programmer". I assume the authors means it as "has programmed stuff with microcontrollers before but never made a hardware design from scratch yet". After all, picking a microcontroller is a design/architecture choice more than a programming choice.
  - maxander 10y ago
    Well, then there's another term he ought to define! :D I've done several projects using various flavours of Arduinos and Pis, but that sort of hobbyist-maker-level experience hasn't lead me to encounter an acronym for "Bill of Materials."
    - wolf550e 10y ago
      Few people have seriously contemplated ordering the manufacturing of a small run of something they themselves designed. More people have seen the term BOM when reading estimates of how much it costs big brands to manufacture a smartphone or a game console in industry publications or even in the more technically-oriented consumer reviews.
qb45 10y ago
> A more productive way to make this point is to simply ask what the terms mean. It depends. If you know what they mean but want to point TFA's deficiency, OP's post is the way to go :)