3 ms·

He forgot about one thing though: "How to learn this stuff?" I did some very basic electronics in my CS class, but since then I didn't touch anything hardware-l

by eddd 11y ago

He forgot about one thing though: "How to learn this stuff?" I did some very basic electronics in my CS class, but since then I didn't touch anything hardware-like. I would love to see a widely accepted and relatively short introduction to this. To me the difference between electronics and programming is that with code I can do something that works very quickly. Whereas in electronics I would have to go through the whole 900 pages book before making something that works. I might be wrong - maybe there is some path that I would take - I didn't look up very closely. And please don't say hardware is hard - General relativity theory is hard, but I manage to understand it because It is simply explained in many places over the internet.

klodolph 11y ago
You probably went through 900 pages of code or textbooks before you got to your level of programming skill anyway, but you can do a lot of electronics with just, say, the first five chapters of Horowitz and Hill.
codesushi42 11y ago
It's not hard to get started. Pick up Make: Electronics to learn the basics by example. Each chapter walks you through a project that teaches some important concepts. http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434448925&sr=8-1&keywords=make+electronics http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Pla... And to get started with Arduino, you can simply buy a starter kit: http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Starter-Official-170-page-Projects/dp/B009UKZV0A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434448980&sr=8-1&keywords=arduino+kit http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Starter-Official-170-page-Proj... I actually think it's easier for most people to get started with electronics than with code. This is coming from someone with 13 years coding experience and who has only been working on hobby electronics for the past 2 years. Electronics projects don't have the same amount of boilerplate you see with writing code today. Development tools, frameworks, dependency management, the commandline, polyglot projects etc hinder a lot of beginners at the start. I would say you need to read 900 pages before you can fully understand everything that goes into developing a trivial CRUD website. With electronics, you just plug in and start learning. Learn the functions of a lot of different components and then come up with something that uses them together. Ohm's law is most of what you /need/ to know to design a basic circuit. You can derive what you need with the help of V=IR e.g. voltage dividers, components in series, parallel. And you need to learn how to read schematics and datasheets. The theory behind everything you do is deep if you want to venture into electromagnetism, which is IMO deeper than what you would expect from college level CS. But it's not necessary to have a deep understanding of it in practice. Though you could say the same about a lot of software engineering and its relation to CS. :)
- codesushi42 11y ago
  BTW if you are interested in learning some of the theory, check out Practical Electronics for Inventors: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-Scherz/dp/0071771336/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1434450499&sr=8-2&keywords=practical+electronics http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-S...
- minthd 11y ago
  I think it's easy to start in (some) software, if you pick the right tools. For example, micrososft lightswitch is great for beginners who want to build a CRUD website.The only problem - it's expensive. Simlarly, nutonian/big-ml is great for machine learning, and gamemaker or ms-spark are great for games, and for websites there are many tools ,be it CMS's or others that help. But i agree , general website design is far too complex.
CamperBob2 11y ago
If Horowitz & Hill doesn't do it for you, try the ARRL Handbook. They are both good learning resources, but are very different in style and content. The way to learn electronics is much like the way to learn programming. Come up with something you want to make, then work incrementally through whatever educational barriers stand in your way. You can put the "education" part first, but you may have trouble connecting the dots in real life. Better to just dive in.

by eddd 11y ago

klodolph 11y ago

You probably went through 900 pages of code or textbooks before you got to your level of programming skill anyway, but you can do a lot of electronics with just, say, the first five chapters of Horowitz and Hill.

codesushi42 11y ago

It's not hard to get started. Pick up Make: Electronics to learn the basics by example. Each chapter walks you through a project that teaches some important concepts. http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434448925&sr=8-1&keywords=make+electronics http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Pla... And to get started with Arduino, you can simply buy a starter kit: http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Starter-Official-170-page-Projects/dp/B009UKZV0A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434448980&sr=8-1&keywords=arduino+kit http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Starter-Official-170-page-Proj... I actually think it's easier for most people to get started with electronics than with code. This is coming from someone with 13 years coding experience and who has only been working on hobby electronics for the past 2 years. Electronics projects don't have the same amount of boilerplate you see with writing code today. Development tools, frameworks, dependency management, the commandline, polyglot projects etc hinder a lot of beginners at the start. I would say you need to read 900 pages before you can fully understand everything that goes into developing a trivial CRUD website. With electronics, you just plug in and start learning. Learn the functions of a lot of different components and then come up with something that uses them together. Ohm's law is most of what you /need/ to know to design a basic circuit. You can derive what you need with the help of V=IR e.g. voltage dividers, components in series, parallel. And you need to learn how to read schematics and datasheets. The theory behind everything you do is deep if you want to venture into electromagnetism, which is IMO deeper than what you would expect from college level CS. But it's not necessary to have a deep understanding of it in practice. Though you could say the same about a lot of software engineering and its relation to CS. :)

codesushi42 11y ago
BTW if you are interested in learning some of the theory, check out Practical Electronics for Inventors: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-Scherz/dp/0071771336/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1434450499&sr=8-2&keywords=practical+electronics http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-S...
minthd 11y ago
I think it's easy to start in (some) software, if you pick the right tools. For example, micrososft lightswitch is great for beginners who want to build a CRUD website.The only problem - it's expensive. Simlarly, nutonian/big-ml is great for machine learning, and gamemaker or ms-spark are great for games, and for websites there are many tools ,be it CMS's or others that help. But i agree , general website design is far too complex.

CamperBob2 11y ago

If Horowitz & Hill doesn't do it for you, try the ARRL Handbook. They are both good learning resources, but are very different in style and content. The way to learn electronics is much like the way to learn programming. Come up with something you want to make, then work incrementally through whatever educational barriers stand in your way. You can put the "education" part first, but you may have trouble connecting the dots in real life. Better to just dive in.