interested in learning electrical/computer engineering

[oodlesOfmoodles]

Can anyone recommend some good resources to learn electrical/computer hardware engineering?

How did you learn? From school, books, or the internet?

Thanks!

[doas777]

if your just getting started in any technical feild, then your best bet is structured formal education. You wanna put more into your studies than the curriculum (thats where the passion comes in), but you'll get a lot more out of a basic class, much quicker than if you were to pick up the text book and try to read straight through it. try to get the initial paradigm shifts out of the way as early as possible.

Once you have the basics under your belt, start the self study.

in 1996 I started trying to study computers (networking specifically) on my own. the horrible Cisco press book I was working with made the job 10x harder than it needed to be. It wasn't until I started school that I realized that i jsut had a bad book, and had wasted a year and a half "studying" it, without accomplishing nearly as much as I should have.

Nowadays, i would never take a class to learn a new programming language, but if I had tried to start off that way, i would not be where I am today.

best regards,
franklin

[Razzlegames]

Go to College, get your 4 year degree in Computer Engineering, get demand for your skills, then get paid on industry average over $100K USD once you have a good amount of experience. If you're still interested in learning (like I am) get your grad degree while working (one class at a time or so).

Believe me it's worth it. Get paid to do what you enjoy... I think this is the meaning of a good work life. :)

[SubNetMask]

Can anyone recommend some good resources to learn electrical/computer hardware engineering?

How did you learn? From school, books, or the internet?

Thanks!

I'm only 16, and i learned all i know about programming/engineering from books and internet..., and i know a lot more than some people that finished college with an IT degree.

If you want books there are many free books online:

http://www.openbookproject.net//electricCircuits/

Those are 6 free ebooks for electronics engineering, i learned a lot from those, by the time you're done reading all of them, you'll know how to assemble circuits, make logic gates operations, know semiconductors inside out, and they give you a good overall idea of all components and Integrated circuits (Flash mem, processors)

For programming, i suggest you buy, The C programming language, ANSII Standard, or read some tutorials online.

I always found courses at school to be tedious and not teach anything as they go too slow, and they don't applicate the lessons at all.

P.S.
And the people that made the books, Used linux XD.
So you can also Download a circuit analyzer and diagram program that only works in the Linux Command line :D.

[Yacoby]

n/m

[Stoodle]

For hardware stuff, the Thames & Kosmos Microcontroller Experimentation Kit blew my mind. I'm still messing with it and I'm writing a program to simulate it. When I'm done, I could give you a copy so you don't have to spend over $100 on it!

[simeon87]

I'm only 16, and i learned all i know about programming/engineering from books and internet..., and i know a lot more than some people that finished college with an IT degree.

Something to compensate by starting your post like that?

A downside of self-education is that you're not forced to deal with subjects that you're not really interested in or would not study otherwise.

[doas777]

A downside of self-education is that you're not forced to deal with subjects that you're not really interested in or would not study otherwise.

Bingo! and the other downside is that if you never hear about something, how can you study it?

I spent years seeing "MIME" everywhere, and it seemed really complicated. looking up the term didn't help to do anything but convince me that it was an area I wasn't ready for.

until the day i actually had to switch mime types in a webpage I was writing, and someone showed me how. 3 measly lines of code was all there was to this shadowy giant. talk about molehills from mountains....

Basically what it boils down to, is getting bad experience. good experience doesn't really teach you much of anything. being dragged through the mud kicking and screaming a few times is what careers are built on.

[SubNetMask]

A downside of self-education is that you're not forced to deal with subjects that you're not really interested in or would not study otherwise.

Well, if I'm gonna use the stuff i won't study it, and I'm not like those people that think C source code is the base, i started with C, then learned assembly, and now if i open up a windows program in a hex editor, i can recognize the machine code patterns and be able to change variables just by changing the hex values.

Also, it's not like i learn only what i like, i learn everything that is needed to be a programmer, I almost always write my own Libraries because i like to re-invent the wheel i guess, i don't like taking things for granted.