Learning the Art of Electronics: A Hands-On Lab Course

This is a way better introduction to working with real electronics than any cookbook or starter kit. Although the full list of components needed to follow along wasn't the easiest to acquire and more expensive than a run-of-the-mill assortment, the selection is diverse and actually covers many functions. Paired with the main text, Art of Electronics, this will leave you with a solid baseline understanding of what the components are and how they work.Very helpful when facing the overwhelmingly massive economy of parts. Light on math and theory; instead focused on component selection. The whole collection compliments any traditional textbook on electronics very well.

I have not gotten into the second edition, but I have done the first edition. It was excellent, and the updates to the second edition was exactly what I was hoping would be upgraded in the second edition. As I was going through the first edition I was thinking the digital section was a bit out dated but the second edition appears to have have tackled this problem. I am happy to see the authors are taking active steps in keeping the book in modern times. Truly a great time to be alive. Can't wait to see what this book holds.

I rated this five stars -- but I may be biased since I am a co-author of this edition. There aren't any reviews yet since the second edition has only been available for a few weeks. However, you can read reviews of the first edition at https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Art-Electronics-Hands-Course/dp/0521177235/. This edition improves on the previous one by updating the digital half of the book to include an FPGA (rather than a PAL) and replaces the 8051 with a modern ARM microcontroller programmed in C using a full IDE. It also includes heavy emphasis on finite state machine techniques for both hardware and software design and uses a Real Time Operating System to integrate tasks in the final uController project.