Understanding Abstraction is Very Helpful in Electronics and Computing
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 มิ.ย. 2024
- Around the beginning of a new year, I usually choose a topic that is related to the channel and universal enough to be interesting for everybody’s life. Today, it is the topic of “abstraction” and its influence on our electronics projects. Understanding this topic also helps you decide on the next steps in your career.
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You inspired me to get my HAM license, and now I am on my 3rd year on electrical engineering. Thank you so much and keep doing this great work!
This is a very satisfying and motivating comment. Thank you! And good luck with your studies.
I just got my HAM ticket and I'm in my first year of EE, I'm glad I found this place.
It’s amazing what a hobbyist has access to in 2024. I started out in the electronic engineering profession in the 80’s. Then switched to working in software for 25 years and I did very little hobby electronics. Now in 2024 and I’m really getting back into it. I have all sorts of levels of computing available. Also the tools available would be mind bending for a 1980’s engineer. I have a 4 channel scope that can perform all sorts of magic and it really didn’t cost that much. When I first started out I had little access to books and the occasional electronics magazine. Now we have huge amounts of information available and excellent TH-cam channels such as this one. Thank you for all you do.
P.s I still like revising my knowledge of transistors
I totally agree (and would add a Vector Network Analyzer or Spectrum Analyzer to the Oscilloscope). You can keep the transisor rung, as we are old and should be able to work on several rungs ;-)
it's refreshing to see such open-minded views on topics people often fight about. the world needs more people like you. excellent work and excellent channel. cheers to a great 2024 and beyond!
Thank you for your kind words!
the "abstraction ladder" is like a bag of tools, the more you have and know how to use them, the more you can do, simple as that.
I agree.
This is BRILLIANT. I was beating myself up for not fully understanding every little detail. You've made it OK and actually healthy to progress ... thanks. 🇬🇧
Thank you! I became an engineer because I was curious and loved to create new things ;-)
I really liked your video. The next comments are somewhat disjointed. But, they represent my reaction to new technology. I am finding that there is so much new stuff, I feel overwhelmed. So I stick to earlier rungs on the abstraction ladder because it feels more like home. In order to understand things like IQ modulation and beam forming, I have to go to lower rungs in order to understand the math involved. So, what drives me in electronics and science. It is learning and understanding what makes things work and tinkering. I am also attracted to doing complicated things with simple technology. At age 74, I am breaking out of my comfort zone and I am tackling subjects I stayed away from such as math. I find that I have a hard time understanding abstract subjects because my mind can't follow the explanations or lack of explanations about a subject. I am worried about being dependent on what others have done in order to accomplish a project and not learning the basics. I found your video thought provoking and I appreciate what you have done.
Being interested in IQ streams and beam forming at the age of 74 is exceptional! Congratulations. With each abstraction come also new words for sometimes similar things. This is what makes it hard to understand (at least for me).
Just one thing about dependence. This is why I am happy to "stand on the shoulders of giants". Nicer looking apples come to my reach this way, not only "low haning fruits" ;-)
A very different view of the topic of low/high abstraction level from me.
Now I could realize that I prioritize low level too much and high level could be very important too.
I think its personal because I like to know deep down how the things work but it doesn't need to be like that.
Thanks for the insight.
I assume, personality is involved in the decision where we want to focus. I like that this video started you thinking. That was my goal ;-)
Meine ADHD-Diagnose im späteren Leben hat mir viele Einblicke in die Funktionsweise meines Gehirns gegeben. Aber wenn mir das jemand in jungen Jahren gesagt hätte, wäre ich nicht so oft in Perfektionismus und Selbstzweifeln stecken geblieben. Sie sind ein Genie.
Wie ich gesagt habe: Junge Leute interessieren sich oft nicht für diese Dinge (mich eingeschlossen). So hat das Alter auch seine Vorteile ;-)
Not old, but wise!
And even more so, in sharing your wisdom with all of us, it helps advance the next rung on the ladder that much more quickly.
Looking forward to your videos this year, as always!
Thank you! I heard that you work a lot with your father. A wise decision for both of you, I think.
@@AndreasSpiess Indeed, he knows about 100x more than me on electronics, RF, fatherhood, life... it's a blessing to have a father who's so close!
Happy NY Andreas and his formidable community🎉 I’ve been a Patreon and a longtime follower of this channels excellent work and believe I was one of the very first Patreon members to sign up. Andreas states it would be difficult without the support of his members to be where he is now. Actually Andreas the truth is I wouldn’t be where I am now without this channel, your support and guidance. The value of this channel cannot be overstated. Thank you for teaching me about all the rungs in the ladder 😊 you’re never too old to learn. 🏴
Thank you for your kind words and your continued support! I always like people from the first days of the channel commenting. It shows that we had a common travel over the last 8 years. I hope, everything is well on your side, too.
I feel very lucky that I found your channel almost at the very beginning. I remember it took a big chunk of one summer vacation to binge watch all the prior videos to catch up 😁. It's been a fun ride to be able to follow the evolution of the maker and DYI home automation scene during these pivotal years. Your channel has been the perfect guide to make the most of out it. Thank you for all the years of sharing your knowledge and wisdom to the younger generations! Happy New Year Andreas!
Thank you for your kind words and your continued support! Indeed, it was an interesting journey! I am wondering if it was one-time based on the effects I mentioned or if it will continue with this speed.
Indeed! I was an early adapter too, but even now I still watch some older videos to stay sharp.
Tbh , this entire electronics/programming was the best community i got myself into. Lots of knowledge freely available and anything felt possible without breaking a buck. Always felt so nice to do stuff normal people found incredibly cool for just 10 20 bucks
Couldn't agree more!
I just bought Spintronics for my brother's kids, well and also my brother, to teach them mechanics and electronics at a young age, to couple knowledge together.
An interresting concept. I never heard of it. Thanks for the link.
I have learned so much from you. Keep recording what you love and I will keep watching! Thanks!
Thank you for your support! I will continue.
As someone who used to be on the cutting edge when ECL was new, I find your channel challenging but that's a good thing. Thank you for all you do and have a great new year.
ECL for me is a good example for "the ladder". When CMOS chips came, our computers were much slower than the (watercooled) ECL machines and some people laughed at them. But with each generation, they came closer (parallelization helped), and suddenly, mainframes no more were water cooled.
You see, I worked for DEC, not IBM ;-)
The topics here often are challenging for me, too ;-)
@@AndreasSpiess Funny coincidence...I worked for DEC too in 86-87.
@@MakeitZUPERI started in 1988 and left in 1995 for SAP...
Thank you for propagating low level hardcore electronics knowledge on youtube.
Keep going and all the best in 2024!
I will continue!
Happy new year to you and all your community. I discovered this channel when I was finishing my electronics degree 6 years ago, where I discovered with your videos my IoT passion. Channels like yours where you evolve your hobby and your content together with technology are great to keep in touch with the newest advances and keep the community motivated.
Keep having fun with electronics for another great year, we're really grateful to have references like you :)
I am also glad to attract young people like your. When I was young, I was supported by a few old guys and I always wanted to do the same when I became old. Now with TH-cam, this is possible in a big way!
Happy New year Andreas, thank you for all the inspirational work you do😊
You are welcome!
Looking forward to the cellular info.
Thanks Andreas
Will come!
Abstraction is deeply underappreciated. It is the very mechanism by which our modern world is able to build such complex technology successfully. Having understanding of the underlying layers is still important because an abstraction necessarily hides details about the lower layers, but you can't efficiently reason about how to make an SPI bus work between two ICs if you're constantly hung up on the first principles of how diffusion current moves through the individual transistors in your chip.
You can only keep so much in your head at once, so you need to be able to look at the problem at whichever layer is appropriate for the work you're currently doing. We always need some number of people working at the lower layers, but individuals can specialize at various abstraction levels and collaborate to produce successful systems and solutions without anybody needing to be a master of all parts. I guarantee that the guy who designs the hydraulic pistons in your car's brake calipers knows absolutely nothing about designing an effective infotainment system or how to tune suspension, but working together they're all able to produce a fully working vehicle.
Thanks for your comment! I suggest to distinguish between "user", "repairman", and "builder". All work on different rungs of the ladder. The user usually on the top and the builder on several rungs. The repairman (or woman) in-between
Amazing video about the history of the channel and context! We even got life advice. Great work!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Everything I've seen on this channel have a old taste but not because obsolete on contrary because is a feeling that is coming from past, not only electron or bytes but also friendships, something more close to human being and this video has confirmed your soul and not only knowing tech things. Thanks Andreas and Happy new Year.
We all are humans, not only engineers ;-) And with age, I learned that both is important for a quality life.
Old age without grace is an extremely terminal disease. Andreas, I applaud you for this message.
Thank you!
Happy New Year to you Andreas and to everyone else!
Just wanted to say that at the beginning of the covid lockdowns your videos (and those of a few other well known "youtubers") inspired me to finally take on a hobby that I wanted to get into for a few good years, so I am very thankful to everybody who created this type of videos on YT, regardless of the "rung" they addressed.
In my case, by picking up this hobby I actually went *down* the "ladder" you mentioned. (Is this a sign I'm getting old? :) ) It wasn't profitable at all in the financial sense (quite the contrary in fact!) but at times it was very satisfying. And yes, at other times it was also very frustrating :) But if you try harder you (may) get there in the end :)
Thanks again and may you be healthy and energetic for many more years to come!
Going "up the ladder" or "down the ladder" maybe also has to do with personality. I had team members of both sorts and tried to match the work with the personalities. As you describe, it usually was revarding for the members as well as for me as the teamleader ;-)
Dear Andreas,
Thank you for all your dedication on the videos produced. I have and still I am learning a lot about new trends on eletronics and Home / IOT.
As a Nava Architect and Marine Engineer graduates on 1990, it is a great oportunity to learn updated subjects with you.
I wish you a great 2024, and keep on with the excelent post !
An interesting combination you have: Marine Engineer and Electronics. Not very common, I assume.
Brilliant and very true... This is the connection energy this world needs more than ever... Up to the next layer...
We all hope. But we are probably not sure if it will happen :-(
I was educated with books like Tietze/Schenk: Halbleiter-Schaltungstechnik, published in the early 1970 years, or Horowitz/Hill: The art of electronics. I am still familiar with these low level skills. The first progarmming was on a Zuse Z23 in a verz basic assembler language called "Freiburger Code". Over the years I made many steps on the ladder you described. But it often helps me, that the lower rungs on my personal ladder are not broken.
We have the advantage of age. I assume it was different when you started with your career and you had to set priorities on what to learn first...
Love this concept. It occurs to me that abstraction is also helpful where "the ladder" isn't known by anyone. It's the mechanism that enables fictional stories to work, which can inspire great creations as people explore the rungs going down.
For example, consider every time Jean-Luc Picard bellows "Engage!" and his helmsman hits the button on the _Enterprise_ console during _Star Trek: The Next Generation._ Nobody needs to be an aerospace expert to know that lots of things must be happening along with that button push. _Enterprise_ would need to de-orbit, avoiding any nearby obstacles, change its heading, go through the steps to initialize the warp drive, start the warp drive, and monitor the whole process as it transitions to subspace in the event something goes seriously wrong (as it sometimes does).
Even with that explanation, I'm only descending maybe one or two rungs on the ladder (as you present it), and it's not likely you'd get much more detail out of Gene Roddenberry's production team. If they knew how to build a warp drive, they probably wouldn't have been spending their time writing stories with it. But, those stories serve to inspire such people as Dr. Miguel Aclubierre to figure out how warp drive might be possible, working "up" the ladder from work done by Albert Einstein on relativity. This is the kind of work that made cellular phones and TH-cam possible. Perhaps we may also see warp drive from it, one day. 👍
Indeed a nice story you tell here! It shows what I wanted to tell from a different angle.
Glad you liked it, sir! @@AndreasSpiess
What a great Video! I love it when things get summarized that well. I already had this abstractions in mind, but it was very great reflecting again how important it is for our newcomers to climb up the ladder of abstraction to even drive further developments. As you said, helping each other is the way to go :)
Great stuff!
Glad you liked the video! Good luck with your further climbing!
Absolutely brilliant video. Best of luck for the future of the channel!
Thank you!
Wise words, as always. Many thanks and keep up the excellent work! All the best for 2024!
Tahnk you! Happy new year, too!
Perfect timing for this video. I have a cart full of low-level components and LoRa geart that I was going to use to refresh my skills. After this, I will complete my Home Lab and look at cellular options and just not worry about everything I've forgotten from the past.
I am just now experimenting with cellular (NB-IOT). It seems that it consumes much more power than lora (and I still struggle to get an MQTT message transferred)... Hobefully, you will see the video in a few weeks...
The "know the rung below being optional" is a point I at least somewhat disagree ... especially in the professional area.
I'm always amazed when supposed "experts" in IT that operate networked systems are oblivious about even the most general knowledge of how Ethernet works ... and through that, are completely unable to do even basic trouble shooting ... (which, in a way, is good, because it causes job stability for me ;) )
I take this as my competitive advantage, I troubleshoot all technical things in our family ;-) Learning more than one rung takes time, so it is impossible for young people. They have to focus if they want to become good at one thing.
Half a million followers soon!!!! Congratulations ! Especially for an électronics chanel... Very proud of you
Thank you. Indeed, I am astonished, too!
This describes why I subscribed to you channel - it pulls me up to that ladder
Cool! That is a very motivating comment for me.
Great channel! Thank you for sharing and happy new year.
You are welcome!
such good words! Thanks a lot for all your work!
You are welcome! I thought about it when I watched your "channel update" video, BTW...
Great video Andreas. Appreciate that you are grounding us in the beginning of the new year. I think this is part of your ‘secret sauce’!
I am glad you liked it!
Beautiful explanation of the evolution of human technology.
We are truly blessed to be living in an age where knowledge and technological parts are much more accessible, further fueling what humans are known for: innovation.
Thank you!
Love this channel, it's like there is a wide variety of food menus, from low-level, hardware, software, and application, really wide range of knowledge.
This is the advantage of age ;-)
I'm in the first row!
Soldering is actually a big part of my pleasure in the electronics hobby. I like doing a PCB layout, then soldering components on the board. I like construction. Simply plugging black-box modules together that are then stuck in a box with Velcro or hot-glue, then downloading all the software from some website to make it work just doesn't appeal to me. I don't learn very much. It's fine for working at a job. But as a hobby it's just not satisfying.
It's the same with many hobbies and areas of interest. It's rewarding to make some stuff yourself! Just ask any woodworker or hobby machinist. Or for that any painter, crochet maker, seamstress, or any other creative skill. Everything out there can be bought ready made in some form, but without the satisfaction of creating something
I agree with both of you. The hobby should not be the same as the job. When efficiency is important in the job, fun is important for the hobby. Of course it is ideal when the job also is fun ;-)
Best wishes for the new year , Andreas and thanks for a very interesting video. Like you , when I started climbing the ladder in 1980 as an electric and electronics engineer, I've seen the pc arrive, then autocad, windows, internet and AI. We have lived through and are still living in exciting times. Love your channel!
Cool name you have! And indeed, we live in a wonderful time for electronics.
Thanks for sharing your knowdlege with young people. In this case, I'm a 41 "young" man. I'll try to follow your example, and help youngers.
Thank you for your support! Indeed, you are still young.
Thanks for explaining your iterations on the rungs of a ladder of abstraction, never thought about this in this way, however following it somehow. And yes it makes sense to old guys like me and I'm happy I could climb a lot higher.and still understand what I'm doing, but also value old knowledge, which helps me understand and tackle issue which you are unlikely to solve knowing only the top of the abstraction layer. Thanks Andreas for all your content the last years, I'll keep following.
Indeed, this is the advantage of age (it maybe is a compensation for loosing hairs and needing glasses)...
You have been a huge inspiration and influence on my development later into my career and life.
That is an inspiring comment. Thanks!
Once again, Andreas, wise words. Your outlook on everything and the way you parse it are one of the few things that keep me on this platform for topics other than history or listening to "The Idiot" audiobook when struggling to sleep as I'm more apt to read a text book now when I have a project idea bouncing about in my add-adled and always contradictory mind. I am a high functioning, middle aged man with mental ilness and tend to have controversial opinions but they come from a place of appreciation for people like you and wanting better for the younger generation. Thank you.
Thank you for your support! I stopped reading books for tech because they were too slow for me. I still own some reference books because these age well ;-)
Very good coverage, thank you!
You are welcome!
I got an internship at Fraunhofer institute around 2018, and the main cause was your videos about LoRa. So i can't tank you enough for that help. Btw i worked building sensors for boats at bodensee to help improve the whather model for the German environmental department
I am very glad to read that! I love when young people find their way to an interesting job. And if I gave a hand, even better.
A thoughtful video to start the year.
Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Many thanks for sharing your thoughts! Keep on the good job!
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for the video! It was great to watch video with such positive attitude.
You are welcome!
@15:43 Thanks dear Sir. You were one of the first one that I suscribed to. This video gives me a new approach in electronics, but also in the way I see life.
So thank you for the longtime support of the channel!
I've been watching almost all your videos since 2019. This video is a masterpiece! Thank you!
You are welcome. Glad you liked it!
I feel like I just received a an infusion of knowledge in < 17 minutes! Thank you for posting, this is some of the best content on YT.
Thank you for your kind words!
Hey Andreas !! I was checking today for new video of yours haha.
Thank you for this nice video !!
I usually make a "social" break over christmas ;-)
Very interesting thoughts, thank you so much for sharing this! I never thought about this subject in such a structured way, and found this video to be very insightful an meaningful. Brilliant!
Thank you! As a longtime subscriber you were part of this journey...
This video describes the abstraction layers really good. I'm working on an Open source project that is about reusing Old ePaper price labels of shops. Most of the new people join are mostly just want a display to display information from home assistant or other systems, and that is fine. But if you dive in, the project has 2 ESP firmware(S3 and C6), firmware for multiple different MCUs(ZBS, NRF...), a lot of frontend work, a CI pipeline, a HA integration, web flasher... And it fun to dive in deeper but also to just use the project to create useful displays.
Indeed, your project is a good example to show how users and creators work on different levels of abstraction.
Well said. Keep learning.
Thank you, I will
Thanks Andreas for some background on your journey. Personally I'm here for the electronics information first, integration into things like home automation second. hope to have lots of insightful videos from you in the future.
Thanks for showing your interests. They should be covered also in the future.
Thank you for all you have done.
:-)
Interesting video with (very special) content that is absolutely true. I'm a big fan of Andreas' channel. Great work!
Thank you! Indeed, nearly every year there is one of these special videos...
It takes some effort to be able to take a step back from the present and be able to have a look at the bigger picture. Your video is an amazing eye opening opportunity for us who were too busy or lazy to take that step back. Amazing video. I look forward to watching your new projects this year. Thanks a lot for the hard work making sure we, the students, can take away knowledge from your. It is hard to get to know something, but your have an amazing talent to pass on that knowledge to the rest, thanks so much.
Thank you for your kind words! Indeed, to abstract is not always easy (also not for me ;-) )
Excellent video with a great message.
It is always a delight to see your videos because they provide a lot of content.
Thanks again.
Greetings from the Galilee.
Thank you for your kind words!
Thank you for an enlightening video. I do understand where you came from since I've been tinkering with electronics since 1956 and a ham since 1958. I did some work with tubes and still have a tube tester in my lab which is useful since I still have a Collins 75s1 and 32s1.
Indeed, you started one "rung" before me ;-) But it is refreshing to see that you are still interested in the things discussed on this channel! It shows that you were able to move "up the ladder" quite well.
Thank you. There was a general worrying mood that I need to re-learn all the small systems to be able to say that now I understand somethig, but sometimes it is impossible because it is too much knowledge.
No need, but always "nice to have"...
You are the rock star of electronics; I could not make a fire if my life depended on it. Great video, once again. Meaningful and funny. Happy New Year to all of your viewers/commenters that I have learned so much from!
Fred Flinstone's failed brother, Craig.
Indeed, we shared most of the way I described in the video. Thank you for that!
Thank you for your time an effort! I wish you and your family a Happy New Year! What you explained, I would call encapsulation of complexity. In my opinion, abstraction has more to do with understanding theories e.g. maths, physics, chemistry, electronics etc.
Btw, I avoid or skip channels with background music and visual effects, driven by general journalists without a solid MINT background but presenting "sensations" (subjunctives) of science or technology.
You are welcome. Thank you also for your continued comments!
I agree you can call it "encapsulation", too. Important is that you do no more have to care about it and it works.
Concerning channels: The video titles an thumbnails changed a lot over the last years. I wonder if this will last or if people get fed up with "the best", "the newest", and "the only"...
Happy new year. You're a wise man. I also have great hope for the next generations; the persons who grew up with internet and knowledge at their fingertips. The steps on the ladder are accelating and Im loving it. Remberber when we had to bike to the library to lookup some information or pay late return fees? Overall humans are doing well. It does worry me that certain powerhungry indivuduals can spoil the progress but only so much. I'm looking forward for the next decade.
Nice examples. They reminded me of the many hours I spent in the library during my doctoral thesis.
I am not sure if things advance faster and faster. Time will tell. My father saw the first Zeppelins in the sky, the first car in his village, the moon landing, and the internet. Also a lot of stuff ;-)
Thanks for a great synopsis. I can't wait to see what you have in store for 2024! Perhaps another visit to the Farm (DRS)? 😀
I saw that your project is still supported... Are you still in the Midwest? I plan a trip to Sturgis and Las Vegas...
10 thumbs up / 10 mal Daumen hoch. Thank you very much for these philosophical new year's greetings :-)
Thank you!
Hello Andreas, thanks for the good work and happy new year. A topic-group that would be interesting to see how it applies to electronics/RF-comms is high reliability and redundancy. We play a lot with hobby-level topics and maybe interesting to take a look of what would it take to make i.e. a redundant home assistant that a single hardware failure can't take down and remains online during maintenance or RF comms for which most-times taking down a single gateway disables the whole system. Even at power-supply level it is an interesting topic for expert-level audience.
An interestic topic. I also looked at clusters (as a DEC employee we already had them in 1984). But from a reliability point of view, my finding was that the root cause for most of my (today's) problems was not of technical nature (for years, I did not have a dead HW) but of human nature because of not understanding complexity or simply lack of thorough testing. Adding redundancy adds a whole layer of complexity and testing.
When I see all these Kubernetes videos I never see a project with a real value other than playing around with new tech. They preobably have no time for a "real" project because their infrastructure takes a lot of time.
So I am not the right guy for such a video. I would not sound convincing. But maybe a video for the turn of the year 2025 ;-)
How I handle the issue? I have alarming watchdogs that send me a telegram message if something is not working. Then I can fix it... And regular snapshots and backups, of course.
I remember the time when I played with raid disk systems. I lost much more data because of technical issues (maybe also not mastering the technology) than because of HW failure...
Great video Andreas, your explanation is very clear and will help many people undestand how to keep advancing in the knowledge ladder. Happy 2024 for you!
Thank you! I hope you are right.
This is BRILLIANT
Thank you!
Es guets Neus!🤣 Thank you for this last topic, it is very inspiring as I was pondering very similar things recently (same age, same issues?)
I also think that your channel has an absolute fantastic SNR !
Newer heard that compliment of the high SNR. But i like it!
Excellent video! It gave me quite a lot to think about...
Thanks and best wishes from across the pond! (Bodensee 😁)
Thank you! Thinking is always a good start ;-)
You made abstraction concrete :)
Many of us still like to play with relais or ride steam teains, maybe to take a break from endless progress and competition.. :) Gutes Neues Jahr Andreas!
I also own a Harley as a hobby ;-) And taking a break from time to time is a good idea! Auch dir ein frohes Neues Jahr.
Thank you, Sir.
You are welcome!
great video and point of view. thanks!
You are welcome!
Interesting reflection! With every new abstraction level requiring its own skills, I fear that mine have become obsolete at the highest rungs of the ladder. But then, my ladder is a bit older than yours...
With age we can let the younger people go to the highes rungs and make sure they do not fall down ;-)
Congratulations on your success, you came a long way from 10k subscribers when I joined the channel.
As someone who is 100% software oriented professionally and only do electronics at hobby level, the same thing is true for software, however it is important to understand that a lot of times we are talking about different tools with different limitations. Abstractions introduce limitations by their design and in specific cases this is not acceptable. We still are using widely low-level languages like C in the industry, and these kind of languages will never go away.
I think same can be said about electronics. I designed some simple electronics for a project where we needed to integrate with a RS-232 interface from a smartphone. In that case using a microcontroller with BT capabilities was the best approach, as the cost per unit was very low, using a RPI or something higher-level would not make much sense in that case, even if creating an integration is times more easier.
I agree: Dealing with exceptions is extremely important. What I learned during my career as an "SAP consultant" whos work was standardization and automation is that people love to talk about exceptions (this is where they see their highest value). I always had a "bin" for exceptions on the table. So we did not forget them, but still were able to talk about the "standard" cases. If exceptions were only 5%, it was acceptable and they could be managed manually (because we were able to automate the other 95%). If they were much more, standardization was not yet done properly and needed rework...
Without this bin, the attention to exceptions was way too high...
Thanks for the video on 'technological abstraction' There is a subtle difference between 'understanding' and 'knowledge.' Technological abstraction is a kind of 'procedural knowledge' which is not the same as 'understanding'. It is not the case that because you can 'do' ... that you also 'know' ...and so you 'understand' IMO 'technological abstraction' promotes that false belief.
I agree that there is much more to say about abstraction. And probably things are not very exact in this area. I hope it was clear that I did not mean "abstraction" in a software technological sense but more in a general way. Your comment shows that I reached one goal: Foster thinking (which is what I try with these "turn of hte year" videos) ;-)
Andreas, i (maybe we) love you for your methodology not only the level of the rung. I thought by abstraction you'll show some tricks on how to abstract, but the journey of how electronics evolved is enjoyable.
To abstract is probably an art. So it is hard to teach (at least for me). This is why I made this video: To show some examples and motivate people at least to try it. This is always the first step...
Excellent video. Very helpful for young engineers like myself!
Great to hear! Particularly from a young person.
There comes a moment in life where you understand that knowing everything in detail is not really that important but useful in some special cases. This is a detailed explanation why.
Unfortunately, for some people, this moment comes late. This is the reason why I made this video ;-)
We often get too focused on the details, so it nice to ground to a bigger picture.
:-)
@Andreas Spiess Thanks so much for the video.
Beste Wünsche für das neue Jahr!
This channel is a place where I find lots of shared interests.
And that means learning from you.
It is worth a lot me as a subscriber and fellow enthusiast.
Appreciate you doing it.
Kind regards,
Duncan
Thank you for your kind words!
You're a master on abstractions!
Thank you!
Just purchased a raspberry pi 5 , and playing around with it , moved over to proxmox since yesterday, good video about abstraction.
I did not know Proxmox is available on the Pi. 8GB RAM would be too limiting for me (my old thin client PC is limited to 16GB which is sometimes a problem). But I will definitivaly try it.
Well done presentation.
Thank you!
schaue deine beiträge immer mit genuss! danke für deinen neujahresbeitrag, deine argumente werden mir helfen, wenn sich meine kinder wiedermal fragen wozu sie dies oder jenes in der schule lernen sollen :-) lg: serge/zh
Genau. Die Schule verteilt "Eintrittsbillette" für unterschiedliche Lebensläufe. Und Eintriffsbillette kosten immer etwas. Die für die guten Veranstaltungen etwas mehr ;-)
Liebe Herr Andreas, Eure Bieträg zue de TH-cam-Community sind echt unverzichtbar. Euri Iisichte und Engagement händ en grosse Iifluss gha. Herzlichi Grüess vo eim Kasache us Russland. 😊
Vielen Dank! Ein interessanter Lebenslauf: Ein Kasache in Russland, der Schweizerdeutsch kann ;-)
I appreciate your channel, it has helped me learn on multiple abstraction layers but not based on my age. I'm a mechanical engineer by training.
Thank you!
2:35 EXACTLY!
Glad you think so!
@@AndreasSpiess I’m fed up of people trying to belittle people just because they don’t know x steps below. I don’t need to reinvent electricity distribution every time I turn on a light!
Its happening in manufacturing, too. 3-d printers, affordable mini-lathes and milling machines, etc. I've been thinking about automating the distillation process.
I agree. And there are a few channels about beer brewing and automation. So distillation for sure would be interesting.
Great video as always 👍
Thank you!
I resented high level for a long time as I always wanted to understand the lower levels. I learned that sometimes you just want to get results and that's what the higher levels do best.
And if it does not work, you still can dig deeper... At least that is how I work.
@@AndreasSpiess Yes, exactly, you get the best of both worlds!
Embracing the innovation and leveraging the possibilities is certainly a must, no denial on that. But two things to highlight, your success and my long-term engagement with this channel came from doing what wasn't done before, and the lower levels enable that; the second thing is efficiency and scalability, because knowing radio waves, power consumption, memory allocation, even how to deal with chip specific funcions and much more on the basis, is the only way to reach cost-effective with scalability and reliability; you teach us that. I'm sorry for the ones who see their projects and good ideas getting stuck because of the lack of deep understanding.
I can tell you a secret: I do not have a deep understanding of most of the things I do on this channel, because I do not have the time to learn it (look at the many topics covered in the 450 videos). But I have my methods to dig deep in some areas where it is needed to get to the overall success. And, as I said, I have a few friends who help me when I am overhelmed with details. Because I have a goal in mind, I can pose questions...
As I wrote in other comments: Knowing a lot is better than knowing only a little. But what if you are young and have to do decisions on what to learn? Or in my case, when my video has to be out next Sunday and I only have a few days or even hours?
A very good market history synopsis! Too many times I'm not eager for a new rung because the business people thinks that their new widget's value is automatically obvious. You made a highly relevant point about the brains limit on each rung of innovation. What happens when the rungs come too fast? One of the early problems with packaged software was that young people could get an answer that was physically ridiculous and they didn't have enough under the hood knowledge to catch the mistake. As always your videos are top quality and very well done.
If the rungs come too fast, maybe there is only a small distance between them and history will forget about them ;-)
Abstraction or Distraction, Engineer or Technician. I'm a distracted technician with an historian affliction. VFD displays mounted on Arduino Uno's and small doppler devices on an 8051 using MP LAB. Not so much an ESP build, it's just too easy. Perhaps replacing the Chinese Bluetooth prompt with the guy with a Swedish accent, might be abstract . Those EL84's look really sweet.
No problem with me as long as you are happy with it ;-)
Basically, I agree. For someone who wants to assemble more and more comprehensive systems, the path of abstraction is a legitimate way "what do I care about the details". But let me bring one aspect into the discussion: what if someone is young and repairs technical things as a hobby and is possibly even involved in repair cafés? Does the eternal ladder of abstraction then also apply to his sustainable hobby, which to some extent rejects the "throwaway society"? Or would it make sense in this case to have understood the basics of technology and be able to apply them?
So it may depend on how you organize your life and it is not always applicable for everyone to pay little attention to the details. From a hobbyist's perspective, however, I can most likely see the point. The personal interest does not have to be a comprehensive technical understanding; a hobby is generally a specialized interest that is driven purely by preference. And that's a good thing. And I also don't see the danger of this channel to "taking off". It's just an aspect that I wanted to bring in here.
I agree; it is always better to know more. Your example of your young guy: He or she has to decide what to learn in the available time. I proposed to focus on the higher rungs because focus is important. Knowing little of everything is not what I value or what is searched in the industry.
With time, this young person can learn more, also on other rungs. With age, many people can cover more than one rung because they had enough time to learn.
This is why I see a lot of old guys in the repair caffees, BTW...
And the goal of a hobby is fun and satisfaction. So this video is not relevant.
@@AndreasSpiess absolutely right. The "fire" of technical interest can be lit at any level. It doesn't really matter where. The important thing is that it creates interest for more. Higher levels are more helpful for getting things done early and thus generate satisfaction and motivation (after all, you have created something). And that is the ideal starting point for more interest and the opportunity for more success. Sometimes I see technical knowledge like a fractal "there is structure at every level and you can zoom in or out, there are always more interesting things to discover. But it's beautiful at every level".