To really understand what the author is getting at it helps to have some experience with lower quality data sheets from other manufacturers. Take, for example,

To really understand what the author is getting at it helps to have some experience with lower quality data sheets from other manufacturers. Take, for example, the WS2801, a popular LED driver chip from World Semi[1]. All of the necessary information is there (I used it to successfully wire them up and bit bang the LED colors) but it's just not pretty. The blue header is jarring and the graphs are screenshots from a scope. [1] https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/WS2801.pdf https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/WS2801.pdf