Mike McRoberts - Beginning Arduino

I bought a book by this author and found that he has a whole series of books available. In his book bio it is claimed that he is a regular on these boards. Does anyone have any thing good or bad to say about the McRoberts books? I ask because so far I've found at least one programming error and a lot of general text typos. I can forgive this if I hear some good things about the series in general. Thanks.

Hi,
I see only this book by him on Amazon??

I find the book to be one of the best for people starting out with Arduino. There are lots of graphics, slow and clear explanations, and a good sequence of subjects.

I have about 30+ Arduino books and many are difficult for real beginners.

If someone has no electronics background at all, and doesn't have anyone to help, I also suggest MAKE:Electronics as a very good resource.

We spotted a few code errors in our copy as well, which is a bummer. However, the book is an excellent resource overall, and avoids the extremes of other Arduino books. Many beginner texts go for the "cookie cutter" approach, where the examples are self-contained and dry, while others go for the "zany basement project" path, where the whole book is dedicated to building only a few complex projects step by step. Beginning Arduino strikes a good middle ground, building on previous examples to do more interesting things, but keeping concepts modular so you can use them elsewhere. If you don't mind debugging the occasional typo, we'd still recommend this one.

Beginning Arduino is McRoberts only Arduino book as far as we know... Apress publishes a number of similar texts, but we prefer this over Practical Arduino or the like. If you're looking for more info on some popular choices for Arduino books, we also have an article on our website, Engblaze: http://www.engblaze.com/best-arduino-books/

@Engblaze
I like it that you put 6 books in your top five booklist :wink:

Is there a webpage source to download (or cut-n-paste) code for the McRoberts book ? The book itself refers to the publishers page which has a download option. However I cannot get that link to work, as I keep getting an error message with my WinZip.

what is that (broken) link, we might give it a try ...

Or better, you could mail the publisher, as you're probably not the only one ...

Here is the link to the page at Apress Publisher:

It will let me download (I think...) but error messages prevent me from using WinZip on the file.

Downloaded OK and opened in Winzip OK for me...

I've tried on two different computers. Can download the file, but when I try to un-Zip I get a message about an "invalid archive".

robtillaart:
@Engblaze
I like it that you put 6 books in your top five booklist :wink:

Haha nice catch! That last one was a last-minute addition. Someone cough wasn't performing their editing duties very well...

As for the book source code, I was able to download it at that link and unzip fine using WinRAR. Maybe try a different archive program? WinRAR is worth the shareware nagging IMO, but you could also try the open-source 7-zip.

Hello All,
This is my first time posting to this forum, so I hope I am doing this right !!!!
I just ordered the Mike McRoberts book, Beginning Arduino from Amazon...
The main reason I ordered this book is that it had a lot of very good reviews,,,
I just hope the reviews are on target. I am brand new to Arduino, some programming
many years ago in Trubo Pascal and in C C++, but not very good at it.
I have tried learning the PIC in C, that did not go well !!!!
I am a semi-retired Broadcast Engineer and ham radio op, so the electronics side
should not be a problem at all.....
I have enjoyed reading some of the posts here...

Hello ajskla,

That's a great Book. On the Sketch/Programming side, I suggest:
Programming Arduino "Getting started with Sketches*- Simon Monk - An Excellent start to programming with good useful examples.

Also there is a lot of How-To on the Arduino-Info WIKI here: http://arduino-info.wikispaces.com/HOME

I started out building a 1S4 radio, lots of Ham gear, and worked as a Broadcast Engineer and Journalist for 16 years before really getting the computer bug and going to IBM. You'll find that this Arduino stuff will be no problem, if you're used to working through problems and designs.

73, Terry King ...WB1FQH etc...

I wonder if anyone who spotted coding errors in the printed book has checked to see if the same errors appear in the downloadable code?

(I am generally not very tolerant of coding errors in books. However, now that I have been through the process of writing a book, I can understand how it happens. You have endless iterations on your own, and eventually you give the text to the publisher. It's very easy to notice and fix something after that. You can either forget to provide the correction to the publisher, or the publisher can do a careless job of making a correction you tell them about. The same mechanics can slip problems past the technical reviewer. "Oh, right, here's the corrected version that I'm sending to the publisher. Try this one.")

So, anyhow, if they are corrected in the downloadable stuff, then it's at least sort of ok.

FWIW, I'm about 2/3 through this book and think it's an excellent "getting started" book for Arduino.