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I've been in the embedded space for a while now, and it seems that most programmers I talk to seem to be doing things pretty much the same way it was done 15 years or more ago: Waterfall(ish) Development, command line tools and a small group uses lint.
Contrast this with the server/desktop environment, where there seems to be lots of activity related to all sorts of facets of programming:
Is it just that the embedded environment makes it more difficult to implement new practices or tools?
Is it that the mindset of embedded programmers steers them away from new tools/concepts?
Is it that management in the typical embedded industry behind the curve compared to IT focused fields?
I do realize that this is a generalization, and some embedded projects do use Scrum, Agile, CI, Automated Builds (in fact I worked at a company that had that in place since the 80s). But my impression is that it is a very small percentage.
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Embedded Devices are less complex devices than Computers. Computers may be installed in other devices but are self-sufficient to exist. Embedded Devices only exist inside other Systems. Computers are more Difficult when used, compared to an Embedded System.
Like software engineers, embedded engineers code, debug, test and write the corresponding documentation. Unlike software engineers, embedded engineers work largely with hardware, and often need to develop or configure a custom operating system unique to the hardware and memory map of the device.
With a 21% expected career growth rate between 2018 and 2028, embedded software engineering is more in demand now than ever. In the US alone, it's expected to generate 284,100 job opportunities. Embedded engineers are responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining embedded systems in products.
Embedded software, just like firmware, is created for a specific device. The difference is that, the software is being written in high-level languages Java, C++ or Python. In general, embedded software is more sophisticated and performs high-level functions such as data processing and interaction with other devices.
Are embedded developers more conservative than their desktop brethrens?
Yes, because they are more concerned with the consequences of making errors. It’s a big deal to patch an embedded device. Not so much for a desktop app.
Waterfallish development is necessary in the embedded world because you are generally building hardware at the same time as the software. You need to know as soon as possible how much memory, how much processor speed, how big a flash, what if any special hardware is necessary etc...The hardware design can’t complete until you know these answers. Once you decide, that is pretty much it. The lead time for redoing a board is far too long. If you mess up then the software is going to have to work around any short-comings. Not usually an ideal situation.
As for the tools, that is largely based on what the supplier provides and any biases of the developers. On some projects I have used XP Embedded and got pretty much everything that the desktop developer gets.
XP, Scrum, Iterative, Lean/Agile:
Since most of the design is done up front (by necessity), and you usually don’t have working hardware when it is time to code, the quick turn-around processes don’t really provide much benefit.
Continuous Integration/Automated Builds Nice to have, but not really necessary. What…it takes about 15 seconds to open the IDE and press the compile button.
Automated Unit Testing
No reason why this shouldn't be done, but only part of the code can truly be automatically tested because the other part is either hardware dependent or has some other dependencies like timing. So you can't really tell if the code is working by the automated tests.
Refactoring Tool Support
The vendors of embedded processors product is the processor. They provide the IDE support in order to encourage you to purchase their processor. They couldn't possibly afford to pay for a Visual Studio sized development team in order to add all the bells and whistles to the IDE which isn't even their product.
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We are all used to the fact that our desktop PC crashes once in a while (or at least an application on the desktop suddenly disappears). It's no big deal. The next patch will fix it.
In the embedded space, you are building something which can't be patched. Lives can depend on your device (in a car, an elevator or a medical system). Most devices are installed and then must run unattended for years. So embedded people tend to be very conservative. TCP/IP is often "too modern". They stick to their trusty serial bus with a communication "stack" that is roughly 50 lines of assembler code.
What's worse, you simply don't have the abundance of space on the device which means you can't use one of the latest programming languages which make TDD and automated builds a bliss.
Next, a lot of embedded development environments are proprietary. If your supplier doesn't support it, you won't get it. Linux has started to weaken this in the past years but a whole lot of devices are not powerful enough to run Linux, yet. And even if they were, the CPU power would be used for something else instead of running a fancy OS which comes with source.
So yes, there are powerful forces working in the background to keep the embedded space where it is.
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