Customer Reviews

The Art of Programming Embedded Systems

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book appears to encapsulate the themes of Mr. Ganssle's enjoyable magazine articles. As in his columns he has preserved his chatty prose style without seeming too smug about it.

Though Mr. Ganssle presents his ideas very clearly, there are times when more schematics drawings or illustrations would be helpful. In addition, his books contain few code examples; but the ones that are there are very useful. He makes up for these shortcomings by putting forward very practical suggestions to help the reader work smarter.

The biggest criticism I have has to do with the price. I had the opportunity to examine the book before I purchased it, so it was somewhat easier for me to judge the book's value than someone buying it sight unseen. However, this factor will aid me in making future judgments about other books offered by his publisher.

In the final analysis, any embedded software engineer, striving toward the elusive goal of being a better professional, will find valuable suggestions to that end in this book.

Jack Ganssle writes VERY GOOD articles on embedded programming for the magazine Embedded Systems Programming which is probably the best technical magazine available for embedded SW guys. His book has some very useful tips regarding low level programming/debugging issues. The kind of tips most people learn on the job and you will not learn in school. However, overall it is too loosely structured for newbies and kinda outdated for people doing 32 bit work. The current price is also outrageous (I got my 1st edition much cheaper). Save your money and get a subscription to Embedded Systems Programming instead. Not as bad a book as Dr. Hussain states but its not worth $85 either!

This book is a good and solid introductory book. Otherwise, it is not really very useful for hand-on applications.

Topics such as using 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit controllers, algorithm design for them, key things to look in the hardware, testing of software, differences in existing real-time methdologies., general software design philosophy are not deeply explained from a practitioners point of view. Hopefully we get then in the next edition.

A good book for those who want to get into the embedded field. More is expected from a great author like Jack G. Ganssle who has been my favorite author.

But it is a solid book also heavy in price. Hopefully we will get a low priced book with more materials in the next edition.

The sections on self-test and boot diagnostics, NMI usage and emulator gotchas were most valuble to me. I generally agreed with the author's comments on design and software reuse.

As another reviewer noted, the text is a little dated i.e JTAG is available on most of the systems I work with and there are several assembly language and BASIC code listings.

Readers should be careful applying the code in the chapter on approximations. For example, the code repeatedly performs polynomial evaluations using the form a0 + a1*x + a2*x*x + ... ; it may have been written this way to be understandable (if so, it should be noted) but it is very computationally expensive. I would probably compare them to "Numerical Recipes in C" before using them.

I'm glad to see embedded programming addressed in a book and would welcome a future version that addresses DSP, HW/SW co-design and an example application of real-time UML.

There once was a periodical called Micro Cornucopia that read just like this book. The value behind this book is beyond programming. It includes some very basic entry-level information on the hardware implications. I think it is a good book for helping someone transition to embedded systems from the dream world. OOPS I meant application programming where there is no need to understand the underlying hardawre.

Although (in computer years) a bit old, this book is filled with timeless information, hints, and code for those doing embedded systems programming, new or experienced.

The book is obsolete. Not much info, for a current graduate of computer science or ee or computer engineering. Samples and techniques are obsolete. Waste of money. don't buy. Probably good for old managers who are not familiar with embedded systems

Object-Oriented Concepts and Principle

The book gives very good advices how to program good code. Only it is not very actual.

Dear sir & lady: Please tell us how and where can we buy the book in US or China?

Edward