business

For someone starting up into embedded systems this book is excellent. For an experienced developer this book makes for a nice bedtime read. The hardware overview is something that all software developers should understand but many don't take the time. Who needs an RTOS ? In todays fragmented embedded world, where we have 8051's at one end, and StrongArms or Power PC's at the other end of the spectrum, David Simon does a good job of presenting the available options. Table 5-1, "Characteristics of Various Software Architectures" is worth the price of the book. My only real complaint is that on the cover of the book the word 'kernel' has been spelled as 'kernal'.

If you are going to buy only one book on Embedded Software Programming, this should be the one. The author introduces virtually everything an engineer needs to know about programming embedded systems. There are two chapters describing hardware stuff that is useful for the software engineer to know. There is a chapter on Interrupts. There are three chapters on programming in an RTOS environment. All of the chapters include coding examples on what to do, and also examples of code with bugs to watch out for. There is also a chapter on debugging techniques.

All of the other FIVE STAR reviews (and many of the FOUR STAR ones as well) contain more specific points which I won't repeat here.

However, I will echo what I said at the beginnning. If there is only one book you are going to buy about programming embedded systems, this should be the one.

It's just what it say "a primer". This book seems like it would be great for someone who has never programmed for embedded systems. However, if you have even a few months experiance under your belt, this book is a big waste of time. I purchased this book to use a quick refresh after being away from embedded programming for a few years. Sent it back after reading about 25% and skimming the rest.