It is obvious that English is not the native language of the author of this book. He frequently drops the plurals on many words and he adds them to words that shouldn't have them. Also, he often omits articles that would help the reader to comprehend the ideas he is trying to get across to the readers. However, grammar is not nearly as bad as some I've seen that come out of mainland China. Many foreign languages don't have plurals nor articles so it is often difficult for newcomers to English to get used to using it properly. So I knocked off a star for problematic readability.
Another thing that irks me about this book is the salesmanship propaganda. Enough with the "ARM is easier to use than 8-bit architectures", "ARM is more efficient than other architectures" and such nonsense. I agree that the 8051 was very problematic. That's why I avoided it during my career. But the Motorola/Freescale/NXP HC08 is far simpler and easier to use than anything ARM will ever be. Some truth does leak through the pages such as when the author points out that ARM's manuals are very difficult to read. That's a painful piece of knowledge that I experienced for myself. I really miss the Motorola literature because it is so far superior to anything I've ever seen in the world of ARM which leaves a whole lot of room for improvement when it comes to their terrible terminology and product naming conventions. Getting up to speed on Motorola Semiconductor products was heaven because everything you needed you could get from one place. But with ARM, it can be a nightmare. Buy your compiler from someone else and they will say, "Oh, you have to search the web to find the manual on such and such". It can be so complicated because your boards, micro-controllers, various parts and pieces of your software development tools and even the IP that make up the different parts of the integrated circuits all come from different sources. With so many vendors involved with this licensed technology, there is endless finger pointing when you need help in understanding the technology. What makes it even worse is that ARM is a moving target. Trying to match up all of the disparate parts so they synch up in compatible versions is almost too much to deal with.
The author claims "You don't need to write any assembly code because you can do everything in C". But those of us who are experienced know that is a bunch of bull hockey. All standard programming languages today are crippled because they can't reach the hardware features that a programmer needs to write efficient and reliable code. That's why good programmers have always had to rely on assembly language to get to features that C (or C++ or C# or etc.) can't. Just because the ARM processor is more complicated and flawed in various ways doesn't mean that wearing the straight jacket of C will make all your problems go away. ARM is one of the more complicated architectures to learn how to use and it doesn't help for people to tell you it is easy when it is not.
Watching the ARM technology evolve over the years I have seen that my skeptical opinions of ARM are being vindicated. With Cortex abandoning the ARM32 encodings and the mess that has come about by trying to recover poor code densities by making their users juggle ARM and Thumb modes shows that their early claims about the superiority of RISC over CISC were just a smoke screen to deceive prospective customers and lure them to their products. So I knocked off another star for the hype. Otherwise, the book will, hopefully, be worth what I paid for it.
Well into reading this book, I find the author is not very good at explaining things. For example, the section on "Exclusive Accesses" is poorly written. It is as though he doesn't understand how it works himself. He writes a lot of words but it doesn't go very far to explain how it works. As far as I can gather, this is the mechanism that makes up for the inherent shortcoming in ARM's load/store architecture to address what CISC processors accomplish in their "Indivisible Memory Cycles". RISC processors lack the ability to read a value from memory, do a test and then write back a result that is determined by the test. Since ARM lacks these features they require extra hardware to coordinate multiple threads or cores running in parallel. As far as I can tell and this is not said, an Exclusive Read is what activates the Exclusive Access Monitoring Hardware. Executing CLREX instruction turns it off when the transaction has been completed and not an Exclusive Write. CLREX closes the transaction but there is no equivalent instruction to open a transaction. The author only gives illusory clues as to how an attempt to use a MUTEX is actually sensed (Success vs. Failure) by the trier (the code attempting to gain control of the MUTEX) by somehow using a 1-bit register.
Another oversight in section 5.6.9 Program flow control. The author explains how a call is made to a subroutine but he never explains how the routine returns back to the caller. I think it is there but not spelled out.
Enjoy fast, FREE delivery, exclusive deals and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Join or create book clubs
Choose books together
Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Frequently bought together
$64.94
Get it as soon as Wednesday, Jul 12
Only 16 left in stock (more on the way).
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Choose items to buy together.
What do customers buy after viewing this item?
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
About the author
Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 2, 2020
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 6, 2013
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 28, 2014
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 25, 2014
Top reviews from other countries
Dipl.Ing. Informationstechnik
Sehr detailiert und dennoch hervorragend verständlich
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on February 28, 2015Sarah W
Very good choice for every embedded engineer
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 5, 2014
