One reason it can be so frustrating (to me) to practice the “read a bunch of schematics” approach is that, unlike code that tends to be filled with inherent textual clues like filenames, function names, and variable names, electronic schematics tend to be very cryptic. Single letter names, only a subtle visual grouping of components to show functional units, no hint of the rationale behind component value choices. If this equalizer were digital, the filter would be a function called StateVariableFilter(), and you wouldn’t have had to intuit that from looking at it.
Basically, whenever I look at a schematic, I think “why do analog engineers like to work in the equivalent of assembly language?”
I do more digital than analog electronics, and based on Verilog and VHDL, those folks seem to be working with “stone knives and bear skins” too! At least they get to have real names for things.
Not being at all a professional electronic engineer, I’m sure this a misguided reaction, but I’m not sure exactly how.
I got a hand me down IBM PC jr in 1988, when I was in elementary school. 5.25" floppy, no hard disk, RAM measured in Kilobytes.
It came with a spiral bound manual that taught GW-Basic. I didn't learn a damn thing at the time, I just slowly typed the lines of code into the PC. I stuck at it long enough that I eventually drew a star on the monitor, as "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" beeped at me its 8 bit glory
In that singular moment, I hadn't "learned" anything, but I knew then, I needed to take apart every single piece of electronics I could get my hands on. I never "learned" anything about schematics or what all of these pieces of metal do, yet I remained endlessly fascinated.
30 years later, I do embedded development. There's not a day that goes by when I "learn" anything. But the sheer joy of my continued failures, along with the rare, occasional success, has made me a very happy person, who backed into somehow figuring out how to read schematics, prototype a proof of concept, layout PCBs, order the parts from digikey, order boards from Dirty PCBs, solder them on to the PCB, program Assembly, C, Python, JS.
But when it comes to the folks that can do devops, thats just plain magic.
I don't think there is a "fast path" to electronics. I didn't learn it overnight or in a year or even two years, I didn't learn it in a course or lecture, and neither did anybody I know who is a decent circuit designer.
Basically, whenever I look at a schematic, I think “why do analog engineers like to work in the equivalent of assembly language?”
I do more digital than analog electronics, and based on Verilog and VHDL, those folks seem to be working with “stone knives and bear skins” too! At least they get to have real names for things.
Not being at all a professional electronic engineer, I’m sure this a misguided reaction, but I’m not sure exactly how.