Callback functions are an essential and often critical concept that developers need to create drivers or custom libraries. A callback function is a reference to executable code that is passed as an argument to other code that allows a lower-level software layer to call a function defined in a higher-level layer(10). A callback allows a … Continue reading Embedded Basics – Callback Functions
Every embedded software developer should be using a revision control system. I cannot even begin to quantify how much time I’ve saved using such systems through-out my career. When something has broken, and cannot be undone, the ability to roll back to the previous version is a life saver. Even as developers recognize and use … Continue reading 5 Revision Control Best Practices
Writing embedded software for microcontrollers that is reusable and portable can be challenging. Different microcontrollers contain different architectures and peripherals which makes creating any cross-platform application code difficult to achieve. The fact is, developers can write embedded software that is reusable and portable in a microcontroller based environment. Over the last year or so I’ve … Continue reading Embedded Basics – Developing Reusable Firmware
Peering into a microcontroller and seeing how the embedded software is executing has always been important to embedded software developers. In the good old days, developers used to have to instrument their hardware with extra outputs and use all kinds of tricks in order to take a stab at understanding what was happening with their … Continue reading Embedded Basics – Setting up Tracealyzer to Debug FreeRTOS Applications
Engineering education focuses on the technical details and the science of how to build systems. The problem with a four, five or six-year degree is that they don’t teach engineers the soft skills required to have a successful career. Here are seven skills that every engineering graduate needs to be successful. Skill #1 – Networking … Continue reading Embedded Basics – 7 Skills Every Engineering Graduate Needs to be Successful
Every developer uses breakpoints to debug their software. It’s fundamental. Double click on the line of code that you want to break program execution on and then let it go (or is it break?). Quite a few developers that I encounter don’t realize that there are different breakpoint mechanisms occurring in the background that provide … Continue reading Embedded Basics – Hard and Soft Breakpoints
Microcontrollers are becoming more powerful every day, causing many developers to forget the resource constrained nature that many are working within. Microcontrollers are not general computing devices that can be treated like they have infinite memory and clock speeds equivalent to that found on modern PC’s (or cell phones). Most microcontroller based applications are designed … Continue reading Embedded Basics – Don’t Forget about Real-time
Setting a watchdog strategy is easy. Just enable the microcontrollers internal watchdog timer and setup an interrupt to occasionally clear the timer and keep the dog happy right? Not exactly. Watchdogs help ensure that the embedded system we are creating is robust and can detect if something runs amiss. The chances for something going wrong on … Continue reading Embedded Basics – Selecting the Right Watchdog Strategy
The 32-bit microcontroller has been increasing in capabilities and decreasing in cost which has resulted in real-time operating systems becoming the dominant scheduler in many embedded systems. While there are more than a hundred different RTOS flavors out on the market, engineers sometimes struggle with basic terminology. Take for example threads and task which under … Continue reading Embedded Basics – Threads vs Tasks
Over the years I’ve noticed a number of common gotchas when reviewing code. They’re there no matter what the size the company or how mature the development process (and I have had the opportunity to review software for companies ranging from those with strict and bureaucratic processes to those that are more shoot-first-aim-later). In order … Continue reading 10 Questions for a Successful Code Review
