Customer Reviews

Debugging Embedded Microprocessor Systems

5 star:		(2)
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3 star:		(1)
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This book describes some practical debugging techniques. The reading is not very heavy. My biggest complaint is that the author appears to carry a big chip on his shoulder regarding the relationship between engineering and marketing, sales, and management. Unfortunately, this detracts from what would otherwise be a good book. Some of the comments made against management and marketing indicate quite a bit of resentment that has built up over the years. This book should not have been the vehicle to express it.

Having being inolved in debugging embedded systems from a hardware and software perspective for a number of years, I found it amusing that someone else out there shared my sentiments.

Mr. Ball has a good logical approach to fault finding and these techniques can be learnt saving years of 'doing it the hard way'.
As for Mr. Ball's attitude towards marketing\management, well I found it amusing and unless you are very lucky, always present to some extent in the workplace.

I would strongly recommend buying this book as hardware and software are so closely related in an embedded system that coverage of both disciplines in extremely valuable.

Learning about the stunts that Management can pull is generally not covered outside of a Dilbert strip.

One thing I really like about this book is that the author includes many of his experiences debugging problems in the real world. Only a few textbooks contain these interesting and informative vignettes, but I think they are incredibly helpful in driving a point home. (They also make a textbook a lot more interesting!)

He emphasizes a few gems that we're are guilty of at one time or another...."don't ignore symptoms!" Sometimes those symptoms seem to have NOTHING to do with the problem at hand! He includes several sources of error with examples that are often overlooked - things as obvious as boundary conditions and timing errors. While it is easy for an instructor or colleague to say, "did you check the boundary conditions?," really understanding all the permutations of functional testing is often overlooked.

Some of the specific information is a little dated, but that doesn't invalidate the usefulness of many debugging techniques that transcend advances in the technology itself.

Lisa Simone, If I Only Changed the Software, Why is the Phone on Fire?: Embedded Debugging Methods Revealed: Technical Mysteries for Engineers