Rating: 
Summary: Stumbling on prophecies
Review: How about that! I spent money in the amount of two scholarships to buy this book and all i got is a tutorial on how to please your boss and the customers! As i am still a student looking for enlightment on this subject i thought Jack Ganssle's book could take me there. No doubt it has valuable information, but that is spreaded across almost 250 pages like marbles on ice(could be resumed in a few pages of tips and tricks). If i wanted "filosofia" i would have read Nietzsche, if i wanted literature i would have read Miller. But i was looking for embedded systems design and i got almost nothing! Obsessing about the fact that "every idiot can write code" is not much of an "art". Very poor on examples, too much of "this thing should be done this way or else ...", lots of statistics and no fun!
He might be a good engineer but he is a poor teacher!Don't buy this book unless you have Liberia's defficit in your account!
Rating:
Summary: Stumbling on prophecies
Review: How about that! I spent money in the amount of two scholarships to buy this book and all i got is a tutorial on how to please your boss and the customers! As i am still a student looking for enlightment on this subject i thought Jack Ganssle's book could take me there. No doubt it has valuable information, but that is spreaded across almost 250 pages like marbles on ice(could be resumed in a few pages of tips and tricks). If i wanted "filosofia" i would have read Nietzsche, if i wanted literature i would have read Miller. But i was looking for embedded systems design and i got almost nothing! Obsessing about the fact that "every idiot can write code" is not much of an "art". Very poor on examples, too much of "this thing should be done this way or else ...", lots of statistics and no fun!
He might be a good engineer but he is a poor teacher! Don't buy this book unless you have Liberia's defficit in your account!
Rating:
Summary: Looks good on the shelf
Review: If Mr. Ganssles's embedded disign skills are even slightly inversely proportional to his writing skills, then he undoubtedly is one of the true experts in the field. This book has a few small pieces of interest but the cost of getting them is a bit high. Take this book to read at the dentist's whil you are getting a root canal. You won't even notice the drill. Almost zero technical content for anybody who wants to learn how to make embedded systems. Mostly an eclectic ramble about Mr. Ganssle's view of management, engineers, software development, and life in general.
Rating:
Summary: Looks good on the shelf
Review: If Mr. Ganssles's embedded disign skills are even slightly inversely proportional to his writing skills, then he undoubtedly is one of the true experts in the field. This book has a few small pieces of interest but the cost of getting them is a bit high. Take this book to read at the dentist's whil you are getting a root canal. You won't even notice the drill. Almost zero technical content for anybody who wants to learn how to make embedded systems. Mostly an eclectic ramble about Mr. Ganssle's view of management, engineers, software development, and life in general.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Experience From One Who Has Been There
Review: In Mr. Ganssle's book he states, "Engineers are notoriously poor communicators..." and some of that truth shows in his book. The chapters, sections, and appendices are well organized but the content in them is not. The writing style has a tendency to ramble like a friendly conversation, sometimes deviating into tangential material. However, the experience and wisdom held in the book's content (even the tangential parts) are its greatest prize. As an embedded developer with seven years of experience, I found myself frequently relating to the author's own experience. When I read the sentence, "We've got to avoid quoting a long, arbitrary time impact as a knee-jerk reaction to any change request." I actually laughed out loud. Mr. Ganssle does a good job of contrasting a disciplined, well-documented development process versus a panicked, haphazard one and he explains the trade-offs between the two by quoting respectable studies on the subject. The material on writing and debugging good embedded code is all stuff that most folks will, hopefully, learn after few years on the job. But, if you're just starting out, or if you're looking for a better way to do your job, I recommend that you read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Good Experience From One Who Has Been There
Review: In Mr. Ganssle's book he states, "Engineers are notoriously poor communicators..." and some of that truth shows in his book. The chapters, sections, and appendices are well organized but the content in them is not. The writing style has a tendency to ramble like a friendly conversation, sometimes deviating into tangential material. However, the experience and wisdom held in the book's content (even the tangential parts) are its greatest prize. As an embedded developer with seven years of experience, I found myself frequently relating to the author's own experience. When I read the sentence, "We've got to avoid quoting a long, arbitrary time impact as a knee-jerk reaction to any change request." I actually laughed out loud. Mr. Ganssle does a good job of contrasting a disciplined, well-documented development process versus a panicked, haphazard one and he explains the trade-offs between the two by quoting respectable studies on the subject. The material on writing and debugging good embedded code is all stuff that most folks will, hopefully, learn after few years on the job. But, if you're just starting out, or if you're looking for a better way to do your job, I recommend that you read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Suited For Those On Big Teams
Review: Like Ganssle's other books, this one is best suited to those working on big teams and/or for big companies. That's clearly his background and much of his writing and suggested methods reflect big company bureaucracy. His writing is also generally geared towards larger 16 and 32 bit embedded projects with external memory versus smaller self contained MCUs. Most examples are x86 or 68k based.
Ganssle's style is humorous at times, and generally easy to read. Sometimes he exaggerates, however. For example, he makes interrupt routines sound like the hardest thing on earth. This book is far from being comprehensive but contains some solid advice--especially for those managing large high-budget projects.
This may NOT be the best book f you're a student, a one-man-show, work on a small team, or are using a small single chip MCU (ditto for Gannsle's other books).
Rating:
Summary: Good book on the subject
Review: The author of this book has lot of practical experience in the field of embedded systems, and for the embedded system programmer with 1/2-2 years of experience I think this is a must for reading. Yes the book is unstructured, but it is filled with usefull practical advices. With respect to debugging I just think that the author underestimate the power of thinking and experience and therefore praise the value of ICE's, which I mostly consider as a tool for beginners, where one of the few exceptions are debugging ISRs with trace.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Design Tips
Review: There are many embedded books that will take you real deep and never let you come up for air - this one helps you stay afloat (and awake). Yes, the book organization may not seem to be in perfect order - I have only found a few that were. But, the main difference that sets this book apart is the insight to problems in designing a system - especially the bug's that might creep up later in software. Here, the author gives his experience on how to design embedded systems not build them (there is a difference). Practical advice is presented that may save time, your system, and headaches.
Rating:
Summary: Heartily recommend to folks starting in embedded systems
Review: This is a great book for folks who are starting out in embedded systems - a solid overview with practical advice that can be applied throughout one's career. Jack Ganssle also writes for Embedded Systems Programming mag, providing a lot of useful info in an entertaining and lively manner. Good technical writing is tough to come across - he does a wonderful job.
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