[sdiy] design experts

[Magnus Danielson]

From: "Jay Schwichtenberg" <jays at aracnet.com>
Subject: RE: [sdiy] design experts
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 09:53:08 -0700

> I agree with this completely.
> 
> Electronics 'in theory' is just applied mathmatics. But there are a whole
> hell of a lot of gotchas in there. Most books don't deal with those aspects
> (Bob Pease's Troubleshooting Analog Circuits is an excellent exception) or
> if they do they're a narrow focus. How many books take you through the
> design of a circuit with all those issues, component selection and PCB
> layout in the detail to do it good on all counts. Not many. More could be
> written about the gotchas than the theory if someone wanted to take the
> time.

There is actually a small handfull of *really* usefull books out there, which
gives you the insight in real life troubles and let you learn from others
misstakes, and learn to avoid or deal with them. Then we are also including
aspects like layouting of PCBs, quick-and-dirty measurements of fast digital
signals etc.

Bob Pease book is good for the "lower end" of the frequency range. It however
needs complementations and sometimes I think good old Bob hasn't got it
quite right althought it is not totally off the mark.

Now, there's nothing good in having many books if

1) They are the wrong books

2) They are not read

3) They are not understood

4) No consequence is taken from the wisdom of them

5) You are not allowed to do "the right thing" in the first place

Experience is good, but IMHO is a good reading essential for making good use of
the experience you do get. I've met so many people that think they have
"experience" on something, and I've been able to prove them quite wrong by help
of a _GOOD_ book. There is an overbeleif in books, but there is also an
overbeleif in experience. You need to combine them in order to acheive
something.

Cheers,
Magnus - who has build a little library at home covering many different topics