December 5, 2011 at 18:14Review of the book “Programming Arduino / Freeduino Microcontroller Boards”
The other day I became the owner of the recently published book in Russian, "Programming Arduino / Freeduino Microcontroller Boards." As one of the first buyers, I hasten to tell the community what I saw in it.
Image from ozon.ru
Original title: Arduino: Mikrocontroller-Programmiering mit Arduino / Freeduino, 978-3-6456-5064-9, 2010.
Author: Ulli Sommer
Translator: Viktor Bukirev
Publisher: BHV-Petersburg
ISBN 978-5-9775-0727-1; 2012 (?!)
Potential buyers should first look at the contents in pdf .
The first half of the book is devoted to the basics of working with Arduino. Separately, I will focus on the following chapters:
Chapter 3. An overview of the Arduino family is given. Alas, it has already become two years old. The Duemilanove and Mega cited in the book are no longer available. The new Uno is not mentioned, because at the time of writing, he had not yet come out.
Chapter 4. Popular expansion cards. 6 boards are described, unfortunately, very briefly and boring. Moreover, there are much more interesting boards. Further, in sketches, these boards are still not used.
Chapter 6. Electronic components and their properties. Very superficial and brief. It is impossible to study why this or that element is needed in this chapter.
Chapter 9. Fundamentals of programming. Here the explanations are quite sensible and detailed. Although, of course, not all the features of the language are described, for beginners it will be just right.
The second half of the book contains ready-made work examples. Separate chapters highlight the work with I 2 C, GPS, servos and LCDs.
Do not fall for the inscription on the cover of “More than 80 practical projects”. There are 30 of them in the book. The number 80 probably means the number of listings.
Most of the examples I would call quite boring, too simple and divorced from life. For example, “10.12 Real-Time Clock” actually just uses the Arduino internal timer. And the “Street Lighting Automaton”, depending on the illumination, lights or extinguishes the LED on pin 13. I don’t know what this can illuminate :) Pairing with a computer is also described very poorly.
More or less normally painted with LCD. But the GPS sect doesn't even explain what this program does.
I would also like to note the “uneven” pace of presentation. Some things are painted in detail, some in passing, sometimes the program code is simply provided - sort it out yourself.
The big drawback of the book (for me) is that the inscriptions from German in the screenshots and some diagrams were not translated. Only a few comments were translated in the code, and all variables and messages displayed remained in the original language.
I see nothing wrong with this when the book is a translation from English, which all programmers know. But it is very difficult to digest the names of variables in German when in German you know only “Hyundai Hoh” and “their computer is undone programmed” :)
Why did the publisher even take the German book when it was already released in English?
Advantages of the book:
Thus, I would recommend this book to beginners - those who are just going to or have recently started working with Arduino. ( buy on Ozone )
If you feel like a confident Arduino user and you are looking for a book with ready-made sketches, I would recommend Arduino Cookbook M. Margolis - O'Reilly Media (2011) - 662 pages - ISBN 0596802471 . It can be found in PDF on the Internet. I personally bought it at Amazon (brought to Moscow in three days!) And am happy as an elephant.
Image from ozon.ru
Output
Original title: Arduino: Mikrocontroller-Programmiering mit Arduino / Freeduino, 978-3-6456-5064-9, 2010.
Author: Ulli Sommer
Translator: Viktor Bukirev
Publisher: BHV-Petersburg
ISBN 978-5-9775-0727-1; 2012 (?!)
Content
Potential buyers should first look at the contents in pdf .
The first half of the book is devoted to the basics of working with Arduino. Separately, I will focus on the following chapters:
Chapter 3. An overview of the Arduino family is given. Alas, it has already become two years old. The Duemilanove and Mega cited in the book are no longer available. The new Uno is not mentioned, because at the time of writing, he had not yet come out.
Chapter 4. Popular expansion cards. 6 boards are described, unfortunately, very briefly and boring. Moreover, there are much more interesting boards. Further, in sketches, these boards are still not used.
Chapter 6. Electronic components and their properties. Very superficial and brief. It is impossible to study why this or that element is needed in this chapter.
Chapter 9. Fundamentals of programming. Here the explanations are quite sensible and detailed. Although, of course, not all the features of the language are described, for beginners it will be just right.
The second half of the book contains ready-made work examples. Separate chapters highlight the work with I 2 C, GPS, servos and LCDs.
Do not fall for the inscription on the cover of “More than 80 practical projects”. There are 30 of them in the book. The number 80 probably means the number of listings.
Most of the examples I would call quite boring, too simple and divorced from life. For example, “10.12 Real-Time Clock” actually just uses the Arduino internal timer. And the “Street Lighting Automaton”, depending on the illumination, lights or extinguishes the LED on pin 13. I don’t know what this can illuminate :) Pairing with a computer is also described very poorly.
More or less normally painted with LCD. But the GPS sect doesn't even explain what this program does.
I would also like to note the “uneven” pace of presentation. Some things are painted in detail, some in passing, sometimes the program code is simply provided - sort it out yourself.
Translation difficulties
The big drawback of the book (for me) is that the inscriptions from German in the screenshots and some diagrams were not translated. Only a few comments were translated in the code, and all variables and messages displayed remained in the original language.
I see nothing wrong with this when the book is a translation from English, which all programmers know. But it is very difficult to digest the names of variables in German when in German you know only “Hyundai Hoh” and “their computer is undone programmed” :)
Why did the publisher even take the German book when it was already released in English?
conclusions
Advantages of the book:
- low price
- designed for beginners
- good introductory programming course
- simple examples are good for beginners
- one of the few sources of information on Arduino in Russian
- for experienced arduinists, the examples will be frankly uninteresting
- the basics of electronics are not actually given
- the program code is not translated from German, as well as part of the diagrams and screenshots
- the book is a little outdated
- expansion cards are described superficially, there are no examples with them
Thus, I would recommend this book to beginners - those who are just going to or have recently started working with Arduino. ( buy on Ozone )
If you feel like a confident Arduino user and you are looking for a book with ready-made sketches, I would recommend Arduino Cookbook M. Margolis - O'Reilly Media (2011) - 662 pages - ISBN 0596802471 . It can be found in PDF on the Internet. I personally bought it at Amazon (brought to Moscow in three days!) And am happy as an elephant.
