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comment by briandmyers
briandmyers  ·  4017 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Who are you, Hubski?

I work in embedded systems. A cheap and easy way to see if you like it, would be to get some arduino parts and just start tinkering - play around with sensors and LCD displays, and move up to simple robots or whatever. dx.com is a good source for cheap bits and pieces (but their shipping, although free, is not fast).





rob05c  ·  4017 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thanks! I'll do that.

I have a couple questions, if you have the time. My background is pure Computer Science (emphasis on Software Engineering), not Computer Engineering. How much will that hurt me, trying to break into embedded systems?

I'm afraid I don't know what I don't know, from CE.

Also, how important is DSP to your job? DSP worries me. I know nothing about it, but what I see looks really hard. I actually like applied math, but it doesn't come easy for me.

briandmyers  ·  4017 days ago  ·  link  ·  

There's a lot of embedded DSP work, so it's probably a good thing to learn. That said, I know almost nothing about it, so I can tell you it's not required for most work. What IS required is to know C, inside and out - that's what you'll use, 99% of the time; often very little or no OS support. Try to unlearn what you know about C++ and C#.

rob05c  ·  4017 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    What IS required is to know C

That's good to know. I suspected. I know C++ pretty well (for a human), I just need to get a book and learn the parts of C that don't cross over, and how to write "idiomatic C."