Harprit, thanks for your efforts. I have not found time to play with the Propeller after sitting on it for several years, but want to support you anyway. How much should I send via PayPal to get your SPIN *and* PASM books?
I have come to the conclusion there is no such book. Which is odd because if you check around you will find there are thousands of them.
Take you pick: structured programming, object oriented design, functional programming, top down design, bottom up design, real-time systems, parallel processing, and so on and so on.
How about an analogy? We have all learned to speak and read and write. We know something of spelling and grammar. We use it every day to say something about something. But, how many of us can write a big work like a novel, or a movie script, or a play or a technical book?
Similarly, learning a processor architecture and a programming language, having mastered it's syntax and semantics, then what? How do we put that together to do anything?
Thing is, until you have written a lot of programs, starting from the simplest things like flashing LEDs, until you have tried to make something bigger, and failed, and failed again, and again, none of the design advice about "how to design a program" makes any sense.
So the best advice I have so far is:
1) Just do it. Start with some small part of whatever you want to do and grow it from there.
2) Be prepared to throw all that away, when you realize what a horrible tangled mess you have made, and start over.
3) Repeat 1) and 2) a few times.
4) Keep an eye on those "how to design programs" books. Eventually you will realize why they say what they say. (Of course it's a bit late then because you have already learned that through the school of hard knocks anyway:) )
Finally, Harprit need not write this. It's not a Propeller or Spin or PASM, specific thing. There are, like I say, thousands of such books already.
@propellify:
Spin book $30.00 ppd. I have only one left. First money gets it.
Pasm book $18.00 ppd.
Paypal only
Send me your email address for the code file for pasm book
@w4efj:
The pasm book is $18.00 ppd
Paypal only
Send me your email address for the code file for pasm book
As for the how to write a program book..... Too late for me now.
@heater
It might be well to start a new thread on the topic for beginners but yes its a pretty nebulous subject!
1) Just do it. Start with some small part of whatever you want to do and grow it from there.
2) Be prepared to throw all that away, when you realize what a horrible tangled mess you have made, and start over.
3) Repeat 1) and 2) a few times.
Old adage - "The question is not if you'll re-write it but how many times and whether you'll admit to it" :-)
The truth is, you don't really understand the problem until you've gotten neck-deep into trying to solve it and usually from multiple different angles.
I'd encourage you to write all your code publicly and solicit feedback. All feedback is valuable and there is no better way to get better than to ask your peers to do code-review for you.
I've learned so much just by reading these forums and reading through the OBEX.
I believe I coined the term "rough draft" earlier in the thread and that was in no way meant to be derogatory although it was sadly taken that way. It's 95% of the way there and you've done the hardest part. It just needs some re-ordering of examples, corrections and some polish.
The correct response of course when receiving criticism of your work is "Patches Welcome" although patches are of limited use if you've decided not to release any updates.
Regardless, thank you for the work you put in.
Maybe it's time for an Open Source PASM book so patches could actually be applied. Perhaps in the style of:
@propellify:
Spin book $30.00 ppd. I have only one left. First money gets it.
Pasm book $18.00 ppd.
Paypal only
Send me your email address for the code file for pasm book
@w4efj:
The pasm book is $18.00 ppd
Paypal only
Send me your email address for the code file for pasm book
As for the how to write a program book..... Too late for me now.
@heater
It might be well to start a new thread on the topic for beginners but yes its a pretty nebulous subject!
H
And if Harprit runs out of Spin books, Parallax still has 11 in stock.
"I'm looking forward to your next book about Propeller. I bought yours about the SPIN language and it's a pretty good read. "
+1. Between your Spin book and these forums I have gained enough confidence to tackle the Prop.
You write it and I'll buy it...
Mike B.
P.S. How about a book on how to design a program which is my biggest hangup, what do I do first etc.
I'd recommend starting with the Propeller Education Kit. The Propeller Manual is the other essential book. This forum is a major resource and will speed the learning process tremendously.
Though Heater makes an extremely valid point re program design, I do not think it would be out of line to have a thread dedicated to the discussion of program design for beginners in that the eight processor environment that the propeller provides is unique and guidance for beginners may well be in order. I have a number of ideas that I could express on such a thread and if there is an interest in this I will start this new thread. Please indicate your interest.
H
Errors reported by reader.
Please add to code file
===========
I have identified the following items that should be added to your errata page:
pg. 103 Table 14-2 The Propeller pin assignments to the LCD module do not match the program definitions or other figures in the book. RS & E have their pins reversed and the pin number assignments to the data lines are reversed.
pg. 114 Figure 16-1 The capacitor value is shown as 0.1 mfd rather than 10 mfd
I will take it that there is no interest is a discussion about how to design a program for beginners.
Idea abandoned.
Closed as far as I am concerned.
H
Never saw/ordered the book. That being said, you should mine the thread anyway, end to end. Toss out the slag of which there is a fair amount including some of my own, and instead concentrate on the code examples provided as hints, corrections and examples of how to program in PASM posted by some of the brightest lights in Propeller space at the time. Some are still on the forum, some have moved on to other things. But the thread itself is a very rich gold mine if you have an interest in PASM. Locate also PhiPi tricks and traps paper, look up a paper "Programming the Parallax Propeller using Machine Language" by DaSilva, and some others by Potatohead (aka "the potatohead papers").
You should also look up the old Nuts&Volts written by Jon McPhalen, who is still very active on the forums, helpful to those who want to learn more, his code is tight and very well commented/documented.
There is also a book out "Propeller programming Assembler, Spin, and Test Driven Development" by Sridhar Anandakrishnan. It can be had on apress.com. apress is running a 40% off for electronic copies during SXSW it seems. This is a very good book moving from SPIN into PASM and in its later iteration included C. You will need to fill in a few blanks yourself with research into the other prop tutorials if needed, but the book also addresses concepts much more than just spin/pasm/c coding, as the title suggests, he approaches coding from a test driven process.
This should get you going pretty well. Also even if you do or dont end up using it, download and install the proptool. There is much documentation in there or linked for the P1 including the Propeller Education Kit manual, and much more, just by clicking on the help drop down. I mostly use BST, but will also use the proptool.
The last time I had contact with him was around 5 years ago. He said that he was devoting his time to building a model steam locomotive. Mentioned something about his age (75) and about wanting to take things easy IIRC.
Comments
+1. Between your Spin book and these forums I have gained enough confidence to tackle the Prop.
You write it and I'll buy it...
Mike B.
P.S. How about a book on how to design a program which is my biggest hangup, what do I do first etc.
I have come to the conclusion there is no such book. Which is odd because if you check around you will find there are thousands of them.
Take you pick: structured programming, object oriented design, functional programming, top down design, bottom up design, real-time systems, parallel processing, and so on and so on.
How about an analogy? We have all learned to speak and read and write. We know something of spelling and grammar. We use it every day to say something about something. But, how many of us can write a big work like a novel, or a movie script, or a play or a technical book?
Similarly, learning a processor architecture and a programming language, having mastered it's syntax and semantics, then what? How do we put that together to do anything?
Thing is, until you have written a lot of programs, starting from the simplest things like flashing LEDs, until you have tried to make something bigger, and failed, and failed again, and again, none of the design advice about "how to design a program" makes any sense.
So the best advice I have so far is:
1) Just do it. Start with some small part of whatever you want to do and grow it from there.
2) Be prepared to throw all that away, when you realize what a horrible tangled mess you have made, and start over.
3) Repeat 1) and 2) a few times.
4) Keep an eye on those "how to design programs" books. Eventually you will realize why they say what they say. (Of course it's a bit late then because you have already learned that through the school of hard knocks anyway:) )
Finally, Harprit need not write this. It's not a Propeller or Spin or PASM, specific thing. There are, like I say, thousands of such books already.
Good luck and happy hacking!
@propellify:
Spin book $30.00 ppd. I have only one left. First money gets it.
Pasm book $18.00 ppd.
Paypal only
Send me your email address for the code file for pasm book
@w4efj:
The pasm book is $18.00 ppd
Paypal only
Send me your email address for the code file for pasm book
As for the how to write a program book..... Too late for me now.
@heater
It might be well to start a new thread on the topic for beginners but yes its a pretty nebulous subject!
H
Old adage - "The question is not if you'll re-write it but how many times and whether you'll admit to it" :-)
The truth is, you don't really understand the problem until you've gotten neck-deep into trying to solve it and usually from multiple different angles.
I'd encourage you to write all your code publicly and solicit feedback. All feedback is valuable and there is no better way to get better than to ask your peers to do code-review for you.
I've learned so much just by reading these forums and reading through the OBEX.
I believe I coined the term "rough draft" earlier in the thread and that was in no way meant to be derogatory although it was sadly taken that way. It's 95% of the way there and you've done the hardest part. It just needs some re-ordering of examples, corrections and some polish.
The correct response of course when receiving criticism of your work is "Patches Welcome" although patches are of limited use if you've decided not to release any updates.
Regardless, thank you for the work you put in.
Maybe it's time for an Open Source PASM book so patches could actually be applied. Perhaps in the style of:
"Learn You Some PASM For Great Good".
( http://learnyousomeerlang.com )
And if Harprit runs out of Spin books, Parallax still has 11 in stock.
http://www.parallax.com/product/122-32002
H
H
Please add to code file
===========
I have identified the following items that should be added to your errata page:
pg. 103 Table 14-2 The Propeller pin assignments to the LCD module do not match the program definitions or other figures in the book. RS & E have their pins reversed and the pin number assignments to the data lines are reversed.
pg. 114 Figure 16-1 The capacitor value is shown as 0.1 mfd rather than 10 mfd
Thank you for a useful book
=========
Just sent my payment in.
Thanks for your inputs.
Jim
Idea abandoned.
Closed as far as I am concerned.
H
I ran into this thread. Do you still have any copies of your pasm book??
Is it still possible to get a copy of the pasm book??
You should also look up the old Nuts&Volts written by Jon McPhalen, who is still very active on the forums, helpful to those who want to learn more, his code is tight and very well commented/documented.
There is also a book out "Propeller programming Assembler, Spin, and Test Driven Development" by Sridhar Anandakrishnan. It can be had on apress.com. apress is running a 40% off for electronic copies during SXSW it seems. This is a very good book moving from SPIN into PASM and in its later iteration included C. You will need to fill in a few blanks yourself with research into the other prop tutorials if needed, but the book also addresses concepts much more than just spin/pasm/c coding, as the title suggests, he approaches coding from a test driven process.
This should get you going pretty well. Also even if you do or dont end up using it, download and install the proptool. There is much documentation in there or linked for the P1 including the Propeller Education Kit manual, and much more, just by clicking on the help drop down. I mostly use BST, but will also use the proptool.
Forgive me if this is overload,
FF
http://encodergeek.com/
Did you try to contact at his email? harprit.sandhu@gmail.com
Did you ever write the book on asm?
If so is it available?
See previous posts/links.
I did a quick Google for said book --- and came across this-
https://www.cp.eng.chula.ac.th/~prabhas//project/propeller/machinelanguage.pdf
Its new to me and seems a good intro I have only scanned lightly-
Also found a short intro from an unlikely source-
https://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/propeller-hat/writing-your-first-propeller-assembly-program
Who'da thought?
Dave