Beginning C for Arduino: Learn C Programming for the Arduino (Technology in Action) 1st ed. Edition

I read a lot of technical books -- and am very interested in programming microcontrollers. Among my reasoning is that the tools, techniques and idioms I pick up are useful in other languages. It is very important to study the works of people that know what they are doing, so that you can emulate that elsewhere.I have a number of different works on Kindle and in hardcopy for programming the Arduino. Some are good, and some are not-so-good. If you just want a gormless rehash of man pages and header file comments, then move along, move along. If you have no familiarity with the C language, this actually is a pretty good place to start. Yeah, I know that blinky lights are not real exciting -- but to get you a foundation in 300 pages actually is pretty ambitious, and Purdum does an excellent job with that. My other Arduino book purchases are now that much easier to understand now.If you want to buy a C book that presumes a high level of familiarity with C language, you will find a lot of good here. However, if you have been reading the same paragraph over and over in a C book trying to decipher what the author meant when they were talking about bit manipulation (a very important topic for microcontrollers and high performance computing), or how to make pointers work, then this definitely is the right book for you.Purdum does an excellent job of breaking down how these things work, so that you can take them and use them in your own programs -- after this, you can take advantage of others' code, knowing the *why* of it, and that's important. If you don't understand why that's important, then please, please, please, do not write important programs. Just sit down and get yourself a nice script kiddy coloring book, and stay out of trouble.Microcontrollers are the most basic level of computing -- so an intimate knowledge of the memory architecture and the like is very useful -- you can't just throw resources at your problems, you actually have to write good code. This understanding carries over in your other programming languages, which is very useful.To get the best out of the book, you MUST do the exercises. I usually read books like this from cover to cover several times until I have the concepts down good, and then work through again doing all the exercises. I went through this ONCE, and feel good enough about what I've learned to do the exercises now. I'm happy with what I've learned to the point where I am back on Amazon looking for other books Jack Purdum has written. I think that pretty well says it all.In my shopping list of books that ought to be written, I now want to read "An Introduction to C++" by Jack Purdum.

If I were to give the book another subtitle, it would be "For students who really want to understand C programming for the Arduino, and not just enough to get their project working."Jack Purdum's "Beginning C for Arduino" is a well-organized and well-written book that teaches you all of the basics of programming C for Arduinos. The book teaches the C language in a way that is engaging and even sometimes entertaining -- it's never dry. This book is different than others, such as "Beginning Arduino Programming" by Brian Evans, in that it is really focused on teaching the C language as you might learn it in a college-level course. Most other books (such as Evans' and also books by Simon Monk and Jeremy Blum) are more focused on what you need to know in order to use the Arduino. Those other books are all great (I have them,) but I still felt that I needed a comprehensive programming book. This is it.Not only is this the "right" book that I needed, in terms of the content, but it is extremely well written. It is very obvious that Dr. Purdum has been teaching for many years, and has an appreciation for what students might find confusing. His tone is very natural, and even elicits an occasional grin.Even if you are already a programmer but need a better understanding of C, don't hesitate to buy this book. Because it contains all of the information you will want to understand, and it's easy to skim past the parts you may already be familiar with -- such as why you might want to use a WHILE loop versus a FOR loop. But the meat of this book is unavailable in other books that I have looked at -- at least not in such a straightforward and well-written format.I just can't find any fault in this book and I'm so happy to have purchased it. If the author publishes any other books about the Arduino, I will certainly purchase them.