"
Books and great sites to help you
to be a great embedded software
engineer, enjoy
1- Become an expert in C : The fundamental language of the hardware that is still
portable (too some degree). Don't just learn it, but become an expert of all it's features
like volatile and why it is important for writing device drivers.
2- Start out with a good development kit like Arduino, but as said before learn other
architectures once you got a good feel for it. Luckily there are some Arduino compatible
boards built with other processors, that way you can rewrite the same design on a
different uC not mess up your whole design while getting a feel for something new.
3- In the learning stage, feel free to re-invent the wheel on device drivers or other pieces
of code. Don't just plop someone else's driver code down in there. There's value in re-
inventing the wheel when you're learning.
4- Challenge yourself to re-write your code more efficiently in terms of speed and
memory usage.
5- Becoming familiar with different styles of embedded systems software architectures.
Start with basic interrupt driven/background loop processing, then move up to
background schedulers, then real-time operating systems.
6- Get good source control! I prefer Mercurial myself.
7- Even sign up for some free source control hosting sites
likeSourceforge.net or Bitbucket.org to host your project even if you're the only one
working on it. They'll back your code up, so you don't have to worry about that
occasional hard drive crash destroying everything! Using a distributed VCS comes in
handy, because you can check in changes to your hard drive then upload to the host
site when ready.
8- Learn your tools well for whatever chip you're working on! Knowing how the compiler
creates assembly is essential. You need to get a feel for how efficient the code is,
because you may need to rewrite in assembly. Knowing how to use the linker file and
interpreting the memory map output is also essential! How else are you going to know if
that routine you just wrote is the culprit of taking up too much ROM/Flash!
9- Learn new techniques and experiment with them in your designs!
10- Assume nothing when debugging. Verify it!
11- Learn how to program defensively to catch errors and verify assumptions (like using
assert)
, 12- Build a debugging information into your code where you can such as outputting
memory consumption or profiling code with timers or using spare pins on the uC to
toggle and measure interrupt latency on a O-scope.
13- Remember, "There is no silver bullet", don't fall into the trap of believing that there is
one tool, methodology, language or system that can solve all problems.
14- Learn to get by without malloc() and POSIX.
15- Don't get hung up on one architecture, it's easy to become a PIC or AVR or ARM
fanboy by accident.
16- Build stuff, debug it, make it work. Practice makes perfect
17- Learn at least one source control system (SVN/git/etc) and use it.
18- Always be prepared to test your assumptions. The bug is usually in the thing you
are assuming works.
19- Don't become too reliant on debuggers, they're different on every system and of
varying reliability.
20- Think frugally. When problem solving, think about code footprint, RAM footprint and
hardware cost.
21- For more tips check out this great article >>http://www.ganssle.com/startinges.htm
" Here are some books "
>> The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas - more or less
required reading for any practical software development
>>Practical Arduino
>>Programming Embedded Systems by Michael Barr
>>Embedded Systems Building Blocks by Jean Labrosse
>>MicroC OS II Real Time Kernel by Jean Labrosse, great intro into RTOS's in general
in there along with his OS.
>>Embedded Software Primer by David Simon - good intro to embedded software
" Here are some websites "
>> www.Embeddedgurus.com
>> www.Embedded.com
>> www.embeddedstar.com
>> www.eg3.com
#ESGeeks
Source : http://electronics.stackexchange.com/…/how-to-become-an-emb…
Books and great sites to help you
to be a great embedded software
engineer, enjoy
1- Become an expert in C : The fundamental language of the hardware that is still
portable (too some degree). Don't just learn it, but become an expert of all it's features
like volatile and why it is important for writing device drivers.
2- Start out with a good development kit like Arduino, but as said before learn other
architectures once you got a good feel for it. Luckily there are some Arduino compatible
boards built with other processors, that way you can rewrite the same design on a
different uC not mess up your whole design while getting a feel for something new.
3- In the learning stage, feel free to re-invent the wheel on device drivers or other pieces
of code. Don't just plop someone else's driver code down in there. There's value in re-
inventing the wheel when you're learning.
4- Challenge yourself to re-write your code more efficiently in terms of speed and
memory usage.
5- Becoming familiar with different styles of embedded systems software architectures.
Start with basic interrupt driven/background loop processing, then move up to
background schedulers, then real-time operating systems.
6- Get good source control! I prefer Mercurial myself.
7- Even sign up for some free source control hosting sites
likeSourceforge.net or Bitbucket.org to host your project even if you're the only one
working on it. They'll back your code up, so you don't have to worry about that
occasional hard drive crash destroying everything! Using a distributed VCS comes in
handy, because you can check in changes to your hard drive then upload to the host
site when ready.
8- Learn your tools well for whatever chip you're working on! Knowing how the compiler
creates assembly is essential. You need to get a feel for how efficient the code is,
because you may need to rewrite in assembly. Knowing how to use the linker file and
interpreting the memory map output is also essential! How else are you going to know if
that routine you just wrote is the culprit of taking up too much ROM/Flash!
9- Learn new techniques and experiment with them in your designs!
10- Assume nothing when debugging. Verify it!
11- Learn how to program defensively to catch errors and verify assumptions (like using
assert)
, 12- Build a debugging information into your code where you can such as outputting
memory consumption or profiling code with timers or using spare pins on the uC to
toggle and measure interrupt latency on a O-scope.
13- Remember, "There is no silver bullet", don't fall into the trap of believing that there is
one tool, methodology, language or system that can solve all problems.
14- Learn to get by without malloc() and POSIX.
15- Don't get hung up on one architecture, it's easy to become a PIC or AVR or ARM
fanboy by accident.
16- Build stuff, debug it, make it work. Practice makes perfect
17- Learn at least one source control system (SVN/git/etc) and use it.
18- Always be prepared to test your assumptions. The bug is usually in the thing you
are assuming works.
19- Don't become too reliant on debuggers, they're different on every system and of
varying reliability.
20- Think frugally. When problem solving, think about code footprint, RAM footprint and
hardware cost.
21- For more tips check out this great article >>http://www.ganssle.com/startinges.htm
" Here are some books "
>> The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas - more or less
required reading for any practical software development
>>Practical Arduino
>>Programming Embedded Systems by Michael Barr
>>Embedded Systems Building Blocks by Jean Labrosse
>>MicroC OS II Real Time Kernel by Jean Labrosse, great intro into RTOS's in general
in there along with his OS.
>>Embedded Software Primer by David Simon - good intro to embedded software
" Here are some websites "
>> www.Embeddedgurus.com
>> www.Embedded.com
>> www.embeddedstar.com
>> www.eg3.com
#ESGeeks
Source : http://electronics.stackexchange.com/…/how-to-become-an-emb…
