[ktownsend]

Similar route myself, though I've been in embedded longer. I do appreciate the relative stability of embedded, where in many ways I feel like we're still living in the 90s when you could realistically master the whole chain of tools and ideas as an individual. Things do change, of course, but at a much slower pace, and depth of understanding of Arm, C, various transports and their oddities, etc., is more important, but the underlying tools and ideas rarely shift in a major way.

You need a more fundamental understanding of how your MCU works (again, similar to any home PC in the 90s or early 00s), but once you learn those fundamentals they transfer very well, and knowledge has a high degree of transfer from one project and generation of devices to another.

I also find it highly satisfying to work on things you can actually touch or point to, versus spending 6-18 months of your life for something that just sits on a server somewhere as a cog in a short-lived system.

You do need a certain type of brain to enjoy this kind of low level development and HW design since there is some overlap and you often have to roll your own versions of common-seeming operations, and I suspect salaries are lower than in some shinier fields, but overall I've always appreciated the work I do, and the colleagues I've had in this field. The egos tend to be smaller, and the drama minimal since the people doing this kind of work tend to have been at it long enough to have some perspective on things.

[bigbizisverywyz]

>like we're still living in the 90s when you could realistically master the whole chain of tools and ideas as an individual.

Well, I personally quite near the beginning of my career had the exact same problem as the OP in the 90s. I started off learning the MacOSX API and C, then C++. Then started looking at Windows API - DirectX and COM were also new then (Win 95) and MFC was just getting started as a direct response to OWL and the Borland tools and VB 3.0 was starting to make big inroads into RAD dev. Then the straw that nearly broke my back was Delphi, which I have never used but was wildly popular and a 'must learn'. By the time Java came out I had decided to stick to the WIN32 API and COM and ignore the rest so I had a career focus but a lot happened in the 90's and it was easy to be totally befuddled as to where to focus your energies.

Programming is hard, let's go shopping.

[tambourine_man]

>MacOSX API

I think you mean what's now called classic MacOS. System 7, Mac OS 8/9

>Programming is hard, let's go shopping.

What you are describing is not programing, but life and career choices, which is much, much harder in my opinion and most of us are sorely unprepared for.

[bigbizisverywyz]

Yes, you're right, System 7. I had a Performa 275 with a 68030 CPU and learned to program C & C++ with Metrowerks (a fantastic IDE for the time). I don't have that anymore but might still have a copy of Inside Macintosh somewhere.

>Programming is hard, let's go shopping. Phrase borrowed from Jeff Atwood :) https://blog.codinghorror.com/programming-is-hard-lets-go-sh...

>What you are describing is not programming, but life and career choices, which is much, >much harder in my opinion and most of us are sorely unprepared for.

This is true, you can either simply bob along on the currents of fate and take whatever comes to you, or try and take control. At first I was just happy with a job, and luckily (all my working life actually) there's been plenty of opportunities for my skills; but later chose more carefully. I'm sure that's the experience of plenty others too.

[a20eac1d]

Any suggestions for books / courses for a developer who wants to go into embedded development both professionally and as a hobby?

[ktownsend]

Update since I should have mentionned HW as well.

If you're looking for something to play with at the HW level, it can be overwhelming to know what to start with. Stick to Arm Cortex-M. That will get you the furthest the fastest IMHO. If I was to suggest one company -- even though they all have their strengths and weaknesses and niches, and I work regularly with several like NXP, ST, etc. -- I think Nordic Semiconductors does a very good job with their support forums, SDKs, tools, etc. BLE is also a very rewarding place to start since you can talk to your phone, laptop, etc., which is Nordic's niche.

A development board like the nRF5340 DK has a HW debugger on it out of the box (to program the MCU and debug programs), is reasonably priced, works cross platform, and packs a lot of processing and peripheral punch. Being based on the Cortex M33 it has a solid security foundation (TrustZone and TF-M), and works well with a first-class RTOS like Zephyr with open source networking and wireless stacks.

You'll find answers to common questions with this chip on their forums and online.

There are other options -- ST and NXP have many excellent MCUs and inexpensive dev boards -- but the nRF boards and the ecosystem around them make them a good choice to make a serious start and learning embedded, and they are one of the only vendors who reliably answer questions on their support forums. The nRF53 dev board brings a lot of value as a serious learning platform if you're getting started.

Again ... just an opinion!

[ktownsend]

Like any niche, it's hard to know where to start and it also depends if you are more interested in HW design, or the firmware side of things. You need some knowledge of both since they overlap in many areas in embedded, but they are different paths.

Assuming you mean more writing firmware, the biggest thing to understand is that embedded is all about C. You'll absolutely want to learn the basics of C and properly understand pointers. A key part of C is understanding data types (signed, unsigned, float) and notations you rarely used in other fields like hexadecimal which is omnipresent in embedded. If you grew up learning C#, node, etc., you likely don't properly appreciate these fundamental types, and you'll need to learn those fundamentals, but that will come with learning C.

For books, I like Jack Ganssle's "The Art of Designing Embedded Systems". He does a good job of laying a solid foundation for planning embedded projects. It's opinionated, but you could do worse than start with his ideas.

And start with a professionally maintained foundation for your projects. Arduino is good for some people, but it won't scale and won't give you the skills you need professionally, and scripting languages like MicroPython won't help you later in life. Use a language (C) and platform you can go to production with, such as Zephyr RTOS, Azure RTOS, FreeRTOS, etc. It's more work and harder up front, but the investment will pay dividends and you'll learn good habits from the start.

[sokoloff]

The comment above is great advice overall, but I break with it on the last paragraph. I think most people in the "I don't know C or electronics, but want to get into electronics and firmware" camp should start with Arduino (or clones).

Not because it's great technically and not because the editor is great (frankly, it's awful). The reason I argue to start there is that they've made the first 15 minute experience stupidly easy and convenient and, as a result, it's become wildly common and popular and you can readily find Arduino-platformed examples for most of the basic electronics technologies. If you're the type to learn best when you can see glimmers of visible progress, Arduino gives you smooth on-ramp.

You will need to wean yourself from that reliance/training wheels at some point, but I think it makes the first 2 months 20x easier, especially if you're trying to learn datatypes, bit-packing, pointers, memory management, analog electronics, digital electronics, communications protocols, in-circuit programming, and everything else (PCB design?) all at once. Break it up a little.

[ktownsend]

I certainly don't disagree, and wrote many an Arduino library and drivers and tutorials myself.

As long as you eventually take the training wheels off, and know that Arduino isn't a path that leads to being able to create financially viable products, and it's a first step.

It won't teach you certain good habits, but it will perhaps get you hooked and motivated, which is useful in itself, and does give you the satisfaction of making motors whirr and LEDs blink quickly.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

I really, really like The Art of Programming Embedded Systems but I think that (1) it's out of print now and (2) it has some dated advice (that was excellent at the time) that can send a modern programmer down the wrong path. OTOH, Jack has a mailing list: http://www.ganssle.com/tem/tem432.html that is current and very informational.

I agree that Arduino is not a good start if you intend to become a professional. Arduino works really well for the non-technical person who will never progress beyond the arduino ecosystem, and for the experienced embedded programmer who is well aware of its limitations. Beyond that, if your intent is to learn embedded systems professionally, pick up an ST Discovery development system (about $20 IIRC) and have at it. Although I worked for a company that standardized its embedded development on Nordic processors, I don't recommend them unless you need wireless in your project.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Replying to myself: ST Discovery only brings up Star Trek references. If you're looking for the dev kit, try searching for STM32 Discovery instead.