Thought Leadership

Some inspiration for embedded developers

I am about to take a little bit of vacation around the Easter period. I will be visiting the United States. This is not unusual, as I have been to the US 60-70 times [I have lost count!] over the years. However, it is the first time when there is no plan to do anything work related. Last time I attempted a US vacation, I was invited to travel down to Mississippi to present at a sales conference; nothing like that will happen this time!

As I am in pre-vacation mode, I thought that I would share some sources of inspiration about embedded software [and life] …

I enjoy finding good quotations. It is not that I am too lazy to have my own ideas. I just enjoy some people’s ability to capture an idea or concept in a few, well-chosen words. All of these have, I hope, some relevance to embedded software development:

Bad programmers worry about code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships. – Linus Torvalds

You need to write code that minimizes the time it would take someone else to understand it—even if that someone else is you. – From The Art of Readable Code

There is no limit to how bad undefined behavior can be. – Greg Davis, GHS, talking about MISRA C at Embedded World 2017

Learn to love your debugger. You’re going to spend a lot of time with it. – Jack Ganssle, some years ago. This is still good advice.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. – Voltaire (possibly)

The problem with object-oriented languages is they’ve got all this implicit environment that they carry around with them. You wanted a banana but what you got was a gorilla holding the banana and the entire jungle. – Joe Armstrong, the creator of Erlang

Don’t comment bad code – rewrite it. – Brian W. Kernighan – stolen from Jack Ganssle

Theoretically, Software is the only component that can be perfect, and this should always be our starting point. – Jesse Poore, IEEE Computer January 2004 – stolen from Jack Ganssle

A goal is a dream with a deadline. – Napolean Hill

The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that you can never know if they are genuine. – Abraham Lincoln

Colin Walls

I have over thirty years experience in the electronics industry, largely dedicated to embedded software. A frequent presenter at conferences and seminars and author of numerous technical articles and two books on embedded software, I am a member of the marketing team of the Mentor Graphics Embedded Systems Division, and am based in the UK. Away from work, I have a wide range of interests including photography and trying to point my two daughters in the right direction in life. Learn more about Colin, including his go-to karaoke song and the best parts of being British: http://go.mentor.com/3_acv

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One thought about “Some inspiration for embedded developers
  • Thank you, I think that development is hard and spooky sometimes, but after you chose to engage yourself all obstacles can be passed, with the help of people like yourself. I’m not “coder”, but always wanted to do that job or work. In hope for some college, mentorship work, if possible, I would look forward for learning. Thanks again, I think I have greatest respect for your efforts now, that’s for sure! I will surely behave more respectively to apps and programs asi is (and such work we take for granted because it does not look at first that hard) and involve in your efforts in future luckily with more effort from my side, I do my best too, even not always. Interested in tech, mobile, programming but also psychology, religion, economics etc. Best of luck again!

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This article first appeared on the Siemens Digital Industries Software blog at https://blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com/embedded-software/2019/04/15/some-inspiration-for-embedded-developers/