What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

bluescreen — Sun, 07 Jun 2015 16:22:31 GMT

Hi Guys.

My interview with The Art of Electronics authors Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill just went live. Check it out! Several of you make cameo appearances at various points in the conversation. [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-59622a70-8378-4a7b-b47c-6b854117e3ea/6232.contentimage_5F00_930.png:16:16]

And we're giving away one signed copy of the the third edition of Art of Electronics! I explain how that works at the start of the interview.

Thanks again for all the great questions. I hope you enjoy the interview.

Sagar

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

bluescreen — Fri, 22 May 2015 14:36:03 GMT

Hey Guys.

I am working with the authors on the final text, so it should be live soon-- hopefully next week. At several points, I prefaced questions by mentioning the name of the element14 member who originally suggested them. Is it alright for me to use your actual name in the interview?

I'm specifically referring to [mention:3ccc16d6969048989c5f001bf046d279:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05], [mention:acaf6a9338de4eef8f6717d5561ed01d:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] [mention:b0bc65b9ecdc4307bd967592f00e340a:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05], [mention:f80b53cee57c44bc9d7c577d07d7c791:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05], and DAB, whose magical powers mysteriously prevent me from tagging him. Would you each either post your preference here or send me a message to let me know? I'd kind of like to use your real names. This interview will be a very big deal and I'd love for readers to be able to recognize you by name if you're ok with it.

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

Zad — Fri, 15 May 2015 16:36:59 GMT

Thanks Sagar. And thanks also to Horowitz and Hill, very much appreciated, and really looking forward to seeing the interview!

Mike

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

bluescreen — Thu, 07 May 2015 03:14:53 GMT

Hi Mike.

Really good questions! I met with authors Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill yesterday and interviewed them. We went quite a bit over our allotted time, so it will take a few days for me to transcribe everything and edit it into a readable format. Not to tease, but I really think you guys are in for a treat-- they are fascinating, passionate, and very articulate about electronic circuit design and engineering.

More soon. [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-59622a70-8378-4a7b-b47c-6b854117e3ea/contentimage_5F00_3890.png:16:16]

Sagar

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

Zad — Thu, 07 May 2015 02:59:56 GMT

I have two questions.

1. Rather than wait decades between updates, is there not room in the market for an annual update? This sort of thing is not unusual in professional publications, and would not have to cover every topic, just a handful of topics that are thought to be worthwhile updating.

2. Art of Electronics is a classic book; professional engineers and engineering students are crying out for is a similar "Science of Electronics". As it stands now, there is no coherent publication that covers the more theoretical side of things, and ties together the various elements of the subject in the same way as AoE.

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

D_Hersey — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 22:06:20 GMT

Pirsig tells us in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that the words 'art' and 'technology' come from the same root.

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

DAB — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:02:00 GMT

Hi Sagar,

I would like to know why they consider electronics an art rather than a science.

Art implies that you cannot make reliable circuits via using good design and implementation technics.

That said, I do understand that very few projects work on the first test.

DAB

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

bluescreen — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:37:31 GMT

Hi Guys.

These questions came over our twitter account, so I thought I'd post them here to keep them all together.

@discreetsecure

today, I can ask questions of authors of a book I've had for decades!
Obvious Q: worth the upgrade?

@uncle_grant

I've got 2 Q's about the progress of the knowledge included in the book: What was the most difficult choice made that ended up in a new topic's exclusion? And is there anything considered fundamental in 1E that finds no place in this one?

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

Jan Cumps — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 06:39:58 GMT

Question 2: how different will the additional book with the 'x' chapters be from the main book?

Question 2: who is the audience for the companion/student guide? (Except for students [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-59622a70-8378-4a7b-b47c-6b854117e3ea/3835.contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16] )

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

cyberengineer — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 00:58:46 GMT

As an Engineer, I may develop "and I'm doing this now" using Raspberry Pi or one of the other systems as a base. But, what concerns me is the security of my program, when I write a program with a PIC, I can lock it down. I can not lock out hackers from a Pi at the chip level.. Hardware security is secondary. Proprietary devices often have the part numbers removed from the chips. It will not do any good on these systems. Just my two cents worth.

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

bluescreen — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:13:54 GMT

I also enjoyed Charles Platt's "Make: Electronics" book from Make publishing. Worked through most of the examples + managed to avoid soldering my fingers together.

[View:/resized-image/__size/383x470/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-59622a70-8378-4a7b-b47c-6b854117e3ea/contentimage_5F00_178852.jpg:383:470]

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

bluescreen — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:43:01 GMT

One question toward the top of my list is: how does the proliferation of low-cost, highly-functional microcontrollers change the way engineers build?

I don't mean "Is it better or worse than using PICs," but rather does the introduction of MCUs as an essential part of the engineer's development process have more subtle implications? Does it somehow limit the type of products engineers can conceive when working on such a base as opposed to modeling everything from scratch?

Curious to know what you guys think about that.

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

modalpdx — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:30:26 GMT

Okay, another question...

I'm a computer science major at a state university. Best I can tell, there is no coverage of electronics at any level in the curriculum. This seems to be the norm in CS, but I find that odd when I consider how much movement there is in (forgive me) "Internet of Things" investment and development, and it seems especially odd whenever I read that the era of developers writing apps exclusively for computers with keyboards/monitors/mice is over. In the not too distant future, I see software engineers developing some level of hardware interaction beyond PC or phone hardware, but I don't think higher education acknowledges this.

Do you have any opinions about whether or not some hardware development should be covered in CS curriculums?

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

modalpdx — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:10:23 GMT

Here's a question that's been nagging me for some time now.

The publication of the 3rd ed of AoE doesn't necessarily render previous editions obsolete. As an amateur electronics fan (but not a EE major, so I have a lot to learn) will the differences between the 3rd and 2nd editions really bug me, or will I be okay starting with the second edition (did I mention I'm not rich? Pricey book!) and then moving to the 3rd edition some time later, possibly years from now? I really want to drink from this well, but financial and education realities make me hesitant about buying the 3rd edition.

Thanks!

RE: What would you like to ask the authors of "Art of Electronics"?

bluescreen — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 04:27:26 GMT

Thanks, guys! I thought it might also be cool to learn more about Paul Horowitz' leading work in SETI, the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. I'm reading through the third edition right now, myself, and compiling a lot of questions for them. [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-59622a70-8378-4a7b-b47c-6b854117e3ea/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]