Brads Electronic Projects Forum

I was in the bookstore today looking for children's books and found:

Getting Started with Electronics: Build Electronic Circuits! (Dummies Junior) Kindle Edition
by Cathleen Shamieh (Author)

This book has 122 pages. It has some fun projects including making a pocket flashlight with an led, a resistor, some cardboard and some tape. I also saw a 555 chip in this book. It looks like a lot of fun stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started- ... en+shamieh

The bonus section is here online:

http://www.dummies.com/book-extras/gett ... -features/

The components they use were sourced from Tayda Electronics.


C++ for Kids (Code Babies) Board book – July 19, 2016
by Sterling Children's (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Kids-Code-Babies ... B+for+Kids

This book looks simple enough to help give adults help in learning C so I bought it.

Chuckt wrote:C++ for Kids (Code Babies) Board book – July 19, 2016
by Sterling Children's (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Kids-Code-Babies ... B+for+Kids

This book looks simple enough to help give adults help in learning C so I bought it.

I wonder if I ought to get that book! At Samuel Falvo's recommendation, I'm going through the K&R book on C. I'm over half way through (on page 125), and I can see I will never program in C. My biggest problem with it all is just that there are too many rules, and I don't always understand the examples. I have to keep referring back to other parts of the book to look up something I'm just supposed to remember but I don't remember because there's no pattern to it (which is why I have a bazillion pencil notes in the book), and that sometimes I just can't understand what it's doing at all. (I never had this problem when learning Forth.)

The C thing is causing me to be more of the opinion that some people really are destined to think more one way than another, like it's inborn, not just a matter of background. I had TI algebraic calculators before an HP RPN one, and I did a lot of BASIC also, and even took Fortran in school, before meeting Forth, yet the way I think definitely tends toward RPN and Forth. Others have some trouble with it. With those who use the calculators, they often want the stack displayed so they can see what's there. I don't need that at all, and feel that for me it would be pointless.

Following the trend line, I expect my long list of beefs with C will get even a lot longer before I'm done with the book, and I'm not sure a second read will be enough to make me successful at all. I feel pretty hopeless about it. I didn't have this problem at all when I went through Leo Brodie's book "Starting Forth" to learn Forth. Everything made sense immediately, and I took off and ran with it. When I initially met Forth in about 1989, I liked it, but I thought there were things it would not be able to do gracefully, or at all. But as I gained experience, I found that it not only can do them all, but with unimagined elegance.

Garth wrote:

Chuckt wrote:C++ for Kids (Code Babies) Board book – July 19, 2016
by Sterling Children's (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Kids-Code-Babies ... B+for+Kids

This book looks simple enough to help give adults help in learning C so I bought it.

I wonder if I ought to get that book! At Samuel Falvo's recommendation, I'm going through the K&R book on C. I'm over half way through (on page 125), and I can see I will never program in C. My biggest problem with it all is just that there are too many rules, and I don't always understand the examples. I have to keep referring back to other parts of the book to look up something I'm just supposed to remember but I don't remember because there's no pattern to it (which is why I have a bazillion pencil notes in the book), and that sometimes I just can't understand what it's doing at all. (I never had this problem when learning Forth.)

I have one of these "Dummies" books on C for programming "C".
I tried to read it on vacation but the book never clarified my questions on how the syntax worked and it seemed like the author rushed the book and doesn't know how to teach by simplifying or summarizing how to get started because he goes through too much information at once. In other words, he shouldn't write a book for those who already know.

The second problem is that I don't have time to read and if I do, I can't get through two pages without hearing my name called.

I had forgotten about this topic. I finished the K&R C book, 2nd Ed., and read part of another, and wrote on my website about my adventures of trying to learn C, at http://wilsonminesco.com/stacks/Cbeef.html .