Building Embedded Systems: Programmable Hardware

This book is the most Practical book i have seen yet for Professional Software Engineers who are into Embedded Systems. As the author says, it truly is his "brain dump", a compendium of all the knowledge he has gathered over his career. I am just four chapters in and quite impressed. There is absolutely no fluff (no padding with introductory/trivial stuff) and every topic is succinct and to the point. It is Information Dense and a Joy to read (for technical folks :-). For example, you are into the intricacies of linking and loading in the 2nd chapter and ICE/JTAG in the 3rd. Note that this book is not for absolute beginners; it presupposes some knowledge of Computer Architecture/Organization, OS, Linkers/Loaders and some Electronics/Hardware. Paired with some good textbooks, this can lead one to become a very competent Embedded Software Engineer. All thanks to the Author for sharing his knowledge and please do write more books on technical matters; you have the gift of getting to the heart of the matter succinctly.

I read the whole book. it's a very good book. I recommend it to serious embedded system engineers. it describes lots topics in embedded system, which are what a embedded engineer shall know well. if you like dig a little more, refer the references. it describes lots of personal experiences, which is different very possible from your own experiences. experiences are knowledge. the point I like to make: a college EE class or a graduate class may teach some knowledge on embedded system, all the knowledge cannot replace real personal experiences; a good engineer's experiences are valuable. pick up one sentence from the book : "I firmly believe that mathematics should be a big part of engineering". do you believe it? this is his experience. as system evolves complex, model the complexity with math, work hard to get more experiences, or learn other engineers' experiences?

The topics on each chapter is interesting but it is a collection of garbage inside a nice looking bin.

I was disappointed I couldn't achieve my goals. For me, the book was not theoretical enough, nor was it good for any practical usage.

I'm very excited to see a book like this finally coming out. The embedded system industry is a very dynamic world. Engineers in the trades often get lost among the multi-discipline labyrinth. It doesn't help either that a lot of similar books on embedded system suffer from being out-of-date and thus becoming irrelevant with the ever-changing landscape of the industry. And this book, "Building Embedded Systems: Programmable Hardware" by Changyi Gu, in my opinion, is a cookbook that provides instructions and guidelines in a very readable way. Regardless whether you're a newbie to embed system or an industry veteran, you might benefit equally from this book's comprehensive, yet concise, and more importantly, extremely pragmatic content. On the software side, although I have been working on C/C++ projects for more than a decade, I still find the relevant tricks presented in this book enlightening. So if you are new to embedded systems, follow the instructions and examples in this book. That will save you from rummaging in the dark. And the talks on the hardware side are equally savvy, although I could be biased in this regard since I deal less with hardware than software. However, as the author has pointed out, the hardware these days are becoming more programmable, and the schemes discussed in this book are insightful. BTW, this book also teaches you how to crunch numbers. So read it If you like to put two and two together.

Great book for both EE and CS students This book has got a full treatment of embedded system design, with a nimble approach. And you can practically see how those courses you learned during college time become associated with the real world. Obviously the author has done a lot of hands-on work for various aspects of the embedded systems, and knows what he is doing. As someone who makes a living on numbers, I like the way how math is treated by this book. Chapter 12 has given a diligent examination of various number crunching approaches, along with implementation details down to the bit level (For example, the CORDIC algorithm has received a complete coverage, which servers as a handy toolbox). Such thoroughness is rare among engineering books in this category. That’s probably the best way to take “calculated risks”, as suggested by the book. Overall, I give this book five stars. And I highly recommend it to those students with EE or CS background.

Recently the word “Arduino” started to pop up here and there on my timeline. Lots of my friends began to get the hang of embedded systems, and that somehow piqued my interest too. I have been working with software for quite a while, but I’m fairly new to embedded systems. And this title is a good handbook that covers just about every corner, while provides both the breadth and the depth in this field. Some other books I ran into only scratch the surface of many. If you are like me, who is looking for a crash course and a goto book, you might want to try this one out. Kudos to APress, who has done a great job this time!

when I look at the table of contents this book looks perfect. Unfortunatly its unreadable because the author does not have a sufficent grasp of English. There there missing words in every other sentence.