> I'll jump in from the sidelines after following this thread: with all the
> discussions and what's been written so far, why doesn't the list
> as a whole
> write the darn book?
> There is a lot more specialized knowledge; little scarcity of people that
> don't mind writing a few pages, specialists in all areas of applications,
> industrial and hobbist appplications, etc.
> A wikipedia/online book should not be too difficult to write, if there is
> someone who can get the ball rolling and give momentum to the project.
> Opensource software manages to do it, and wikipedia is going strong too!


That's what www.piclist.com is for, a bunch of articles that you can rummage
thru.  If I recall, there's a 'newbies start here' link, or was that
www.dontronics.com?

Anyway, you can't have 'one book to learn them all', as the definition of
newbie varies. In my case, I've got a software background, and also like to
bash bits of metal into various shapes. No great problems with soldering,
ASM, bit twiddling, modular coding or digital logic. Analog slows me down
though, the recent post about the bloke having problems with chaining
latches (595's?) would affect me too.  Whaddya mean, I can't join 20 of them
together?

Olin broke newbies down into 2 main camps, student & hobbyist. Hobbyist
covers a huge range of people. A hobbyist who just wants to get a one-off
project working might be happier with www.pixaxe.co.uk, PICs with a BASIC
interpreter (like the Stamp, only cheaper)

You need to define your 'market'. Easier said than done. That's also why
book reviews (it's great vs it sucks) need to be read cautiously.
Ultimately, only you can determine whether a book is any good, as the
reviewer will have different background, knowledge and mindset to you.

Tony


-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist