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Comment by bmitc | Hacker News Reader

It has been a long time since I last opened this book, which was a library. I recall being surprised by the glowing reviews since I was dumbfounded by the contents. It all felt very loosey goosey for me, like looking in grandma's cookbook. Did I miss something? Should I revisit?

I found that I clicked much better with MIT's Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits.

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I felt the same reaction, it had lots of nifty tricks I guess but not much of a cohesive framework.

that is why the word art is in the title. regardless, it gives you a good feel for how many engineers actually design stuff in the industry. the problem spaces aren't fully constrained, so you have to fill in the gaps with experience, guesswork, experimentation, and (yes) art.

Yes, I realize art is in the title and get the general sentiment. But this book is often proposed as a way to learn electronics from scratch. I'm not terribly sure it accomplishes that. My thoughts are that it's probably similar to the Feynman lectures: terrible to learn from as a first introduction but great once you have already learned the material.

How does it compare in approach with The Art of Computer Programming, which is more of an encyclopaedia like view of the subject.

if you want to cook a good meal you're probably better off with grandma's cookbook than the second edition of pauling's general chemistry

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