Lindy Mayfield <lindy.mayfield <at> ssf.sas.com> writes:
> One big difference is that computers are my profession while I only slightly
dabble in EE.  If it were the
> other way round I'd probably be good with electronics and struggling with the
programming aspect of it.

Electronics and IT share two major features: complexity and precision. The
former demands the latter. But the understanding/modeling side is very similar.
A complex circuit is just a mesh that can be represented as a sparse matrix and
computed using specific rules for the nodes (for example Spice does that, and
NEC2 does it for RF circuits and antennas). It's just a glorified state machine.
Don't be fooled by the 'analog' character of the system not being modeled
properly by an inherently digital steady state model. Everything has a finite
resolution eventually. This is the same as an algorythm represented by a
connected graph in IT, and modeled by an automaton walking it. So if one learns
the rules well enough one can master both CS and EE. Of course there is no
replacement for a degree program in CS or in EE. It's the huge volume of
information that causes problems for 'casual' students, together with the
commercial (non-engineering/physics) oriented information available from
contemporary books and other sources.

Peter


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