About this Book
“I’m curious about hardware and electronics and IoT, but I have absolutely no idea where to begin.” I’ve heard that notion, in many variations, from many (dozens?—at least—maybe a hundred?) web developers. Yes, it certainly would be fun to be able to build robots and clever gadgets. Yes, it would be useful to know how to read data from sensors and do interesting things with the data, to be able to construct your own automated, web-connected devices (for feeding your pet on time, detecting rainfall amounts, displaying the latest rugby scores—the mind really does boggle at all the possibilities). But also, yes, it can feel like a daunting, even overwhelming, new landscape if you’ve never so much as made an LED blink, much less written and flashed optimized firmware to an embedded microcontroller.
Good news! You can take advantage of your understanding of JavaScript and general programming metaphors to frame your learning adventure, and make wrapping your head around this new world a bit less chaotic. JavaScript can lend a sheen of familiarity, providing a touchstone to ease your introduction to electronics, hardware, and the internet of things (IoT).