"John Ferrell" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 16:12:31 GMT, "ian field"
wrote:


Thanks - why the hell couldn't any of the tutorials have told me that?!

Most of it probably isn't needed until the student reaches a more advanced
level, but when the tutorial introduces necessary instructions without any
explanations of their purpose, saying "just work around it for now" isn't
good enough, to my mind just entering code parrot fashion isn't learning.

I like to think of learning each new subject like peeling an orange.
Before you achieve the full experience you will have to peel the whole
thing. However, you can get a taste by just removing a small piece of
the peel.

I keep notes as I go regarding what I don't know.
An example: Most of us write our first program in a new language as a
"Hello World". With embedded programming it is a "blink a led".

Interrupts, watch dog timers, pulse width modulation and process
control loops are each steps that need to be understood but can be
deferred a while.

There really is no end to learning embedded processing!

At some point I'll take time off reading as many tutorials as I can find and
type in a ready made "flash a LED" program, but I'd like to get the
instructions I don't understand down to a minimum by then.