So, you’re all pepped up and ready to take the journey in learning C programming! I won’t say it is easy and it is going to be tough. But hopefully the things you will learn from these series of articles will make learning C programming easier and fun.

I already told you earlier that C programming is a skill. C programming can be learned and mastered just like any skill, like playing an instrument, dancing, or playing a sport.

As with any other skill, there are some things you need to have to effectively master C programming.

Here’s my T.I.P for future C programming experts: all you need is time, interest, and practice.

Time

Mastery of skills take time. Our minds are not immediately accustomed to programming, that is why it takes time before we can truly understand the meaning behind the logic and the syntax. Our mind and body can adapt to different situations, but only if  given enough time. Athletes don’t become topnotch overnight, right? It takes years of practice and hard training to achieve topnotch performance.

Interest

Skills require that you are interested to do it in the first place. We have different reasons for learning C programming. Perhaps you are just required because it is part of your coursework. Maybe you are looking at programming as a future (and to tell you, lucrative) career. Or maybe, just like me, the art and science of programming just plain interests you. No matter the reasons, you have to motivate yourself to learn programming so you can keep the passion burning even in those dark times.

Practice

Just do it. As with any other skill, you won’t master programming without actually doing it. Don’t just copy the codes from notes or the Internet. Don’t just run pre-made programs. Think about how the code was made and how it works. You won’t become a virtuoso just by listening to music. You have to play the instrument!

Following these T.I.P.s will make you understand better in the art and science of C programming.

But wait. How do you know you already achieved master programmer status? When do you stop, and when do you start learning a new concept? After doing everything in your power to know the ins and outs of C programming, there always seems to be a point of “plateau” where you are no longer learning anything new. The answer lies in our understanding of the stages involved on how we humans develop skills.

Teachers and students see C programming, and computer programming, in general, as something of a science. But from my experience, programming is more than that. C programming, and programming, in general, is not mere science. It is an art. In fact, I see it as as an abstract, literary form of art mixed with fancy, twisted-logic.

If you have experience programming, programming is so abstract that it’s mind-boggling just thinking about it. How can something be created out of nothing? How can software be created just by typing something? Add it to the fact that we see programming as a science, so it’s all about numbers, math, equations, and all that technical stuff.

To make matters worse, a lot of people who had programming experience would say programming is indeed hard, adding to its bad image. If you’re new to programming, you’re very much intimidated right now.

I want you to pause for a while and heed what I have to say. It will change the way you see programming forever, and you’ll actually start liking it instead of hating it. Here goes:

Isn’t programming just like painting, composing music, or writing a literary piece?

Look at the striking similarities. Does an image, a melody, or a story exist before it was created by the artist? Hell no. It only exists once the artist converts his or her abstract ideas into something concrete: a painting, a song, or a literary piece.

An algorithm, the idea inside the programmer’s head, the series of steps that make up a program, is converted to something that the computer can run, through the process of programming. Programming is nothing different from composing music, painting, or writing a piece of literature. Isn’t software just the concrete form of an abstract idea?

Conversion of an abstract idea to something concrete that the senses can capture requires skill. Therefore, programming, in its purest essence, is merely a skill!

Right now you would probably disagree with me. Music is artsy. Writing is artsy. There’s no science or logic in that unlike programming.

But doesn’t the musician follow music theory in order to make a song? Composing music is all about scales, notes, rhythm, and music-theory. How about writing a novel? Well… The writer has to know how to construct a sentence, follow the syntax and semantics of grammar, etc. to come up with very good narratives. Music theory and grammar are all sciences, and science, whether you like it or not, should incorporate some form of logic to make sense.

In computer programming, the programming language (C, in particular, for this series of articles), is the English grammar to writing English novels.

By know you should be getting the idea that programming is really nothing different from any skill you can master. It is not hard-core mathematics and it is not hard-core genetic engineering. Programming is just like any other skill that you can learn and master through practice, interest, time, and dedication.

These series of articles is all about just that: helping yourself master the skill of C programming through self-help. My goal in writing these articles is to help beginner C programmers to ease up the learning curve in learning the skill of programming using the C language, in particular. C is a widely-used programming language, and while some may not agree with this, other programming languages are patterned to C (Java and Ruby, just to name a few), so learning the language really hits a lot of birds with one stone.

Aside from beginners, I also would like seasoned C programmers and teachers to learn from these articles (and correct me if I’m wrong!) and to add to the vast body of knowledge we already have about C programming.

Ready? Let’s begin.

ADTs stand for Abstract Data Types. APIs stand for Application Programming Interfaces. ADTs are software things composed of data structures and operations. APIs, on the other hand, are function calls that simplify the use of a particular functionality in your system. You might have used APIs in your hobby projects, for example, accessing an ADC peripheral using simple function calls, or sending data through the UART without having the need to directly access the UART registers.

Designing applications with the right ADTs and APIs in mind have lots of benefits:

- ADTs and APIs make software more cohesive. More cohesion means that the functionalities of your components are more focused and specialized to a particular application.

- ADTs and APIs make software less coupled. Coupling refers to the dependency of software components to one another. The less dependent they are, the better, as you can change one software component without affecting other components that much.

- ADTs and APIs make software reusable. This is an after-effect of high-cohesion and low-coupling. You can reuse software components if they are focused on their job and are not dependent too much on other software to function.

- ADTS and APIs make software easy to maintain. Well-written ADTs and APIs abstract the implementation of your operations from higher, system-level applications, thus allowing you to modify the implementation with very little change to the dependent application.

With all these benefits, ADTs and APIs are important to embedded systems development because they provide a sound embedded systems software design. Embedded systems are driven by software, and just like any other software, embedded systems benefit from a good architectural-level and system-level design.

Up next: Case Study: ADTs and APIs in Mobot Design.

Cheers!

The question now is, what is a bootloader? And how does it affect MCU development?

Bootloaders allow programming of the MCU on-the-fly using a common serial interface like UART or USB. This is very convenient because you can use your PC directly without the need to buy a separate programmer device or other special circuitry to program the MCU. Moreover, on a plus-side, these bootloaders come with a user-friendly programming GUI which makes programming the MCU a lot easier.

The downside of bootloaders is that they are just like any other MCU program: they should first be burned into the MCU before they work. If your MCU is not programmed with a bootloader then you’re back to square one. No bootloader means programming the MCU the old-fashioned way using specialized devices or special circuitry.

My advice on this: avoid development kits that use bootloaders to program the MCU. If the MCU programmed with the bootloader got busted, you’re dead. Good luck finding a copy (probably proprietary, closed-source) of the bootloader from your supplier. Oh you’re lucky to have one? Better buy your own programmer device! Oh, you don’t need the bootloader anymore…

Noriel Mallari is a Full-Time Instructor in DLSU. He is involved with several embedded systems design projects and is teaching Electronics and Communications, and Computer Engineering major courses. You can contact him via e-mail at noriel.mallari at gmail.com.

There are two ways to charge clients for your time, expertise, and brain cells: NRE cost + charge per unit or one-time design fee. One is good over the other depending on the situation and your disposition.

One option is NRE cost + charge per unit. NRE  means non-recurring engineering cost. This option allows you to get paid a minimum fee at the start of the project, and get paid (a small amount) based on the volume of products or devices that sells, which you helped design. This option is bad if you don’t see the device being sold in volume, specially with a very low initial fee. However, this option can be very good if your project is going to generate volume, something like the thousands. One peso per device times 100000 devices would be Php 100,000.

The other option is one-time “big-time” design fee. This is not limited to a one-time payment at the start of the project: payment can also be “staggered” and given to you in phases. This option is good for one-time design projects, specially if what you work on is just one device like a test machine or a prototype. The pay should also be significant over the other option. This option is bad if you see the project as generating lots of volume, in which case, you won’t be earning as much compared to the other option.

Some companies and clients prefer one option over the other. You just have to figure out which one will work for you and for them.

Think of it this way: 40 hours a week is the usual work-hour for a full-time industry job/business. That’s 8 hours per day, 5 days a week. And since you are a student right now, it’s fair to consider that you going to school and studying is your full-time job. School = full-time job. School = 40 hours a week. Pretty simple and straightforward right?

Let’s say you are enrolled in lectures and lab courses which eats up 24+ hours a week. If you are diligent enough, you might dedicate around 4+ hours to studying and reviewing your lessons. 24+4 = 28, and 40-28 = 12 hours. Hola, you are left with 12 hours to do other school stuff!

Oh yes… The 12 hours… That’s the amount of time dedicated to thesis, as I usually tell my advisees. You can also use the 12 hours to do org-work and extra-curricular activities.

You don’t have that much time you say? Again, think about it. How many hours do you dedicate to play DotA? How many hours do you spend just hanging out with your friends? I’m not saying these are bad but I do believe precious hours should be dedicated to the important tasks at hand.

Ok, don’t get mad at me. And yes, playing DotA and hanging out with friends are all important activities. That’s why I’ll post another one on this! Coming up next: What to do with the rest of your hours while in college.