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
Best practices and industry standards develop and evolve over time but they represent a snap shot of guiding wisdom. Best practices can be slow to evolve and often become entrenched despite technological advances that void the previously known best practice. The use of C language features within the embedded systems space has suffered the same … Continue reading 5 Forbidden C Features that just might not be
Python is becoming ever more and more popular and now that real-time embedded software developers have access to Python on the microcontroller through Micro Python, its important now more than ever that developers understand the Micro Python heap. There are several heap related libraries and kernel options that developers need to be aware of. First, … Continue reading Managing the Heap Space in Micro Python
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
Every industry has their best practices and their sinful practices. The cardinal sins are the practices that many are aware of but that are just too tempting or too easy to fall into. The embedded software industry has a number of these cardinal sins but there are seven in particular that seem to have pervaded … Continue reading Tips and Tricks – 7 Cardinal Sins of Embedded Software Development
Selecting the right RTOS for a project can be tricky business. Engineers often come to the table with predisposed opinions that can cloud their judgment and pull them in a direction that isn’t optimal. Let’s face it, many of us have been involved in an engineering decision where the choice was dictated by the loudest … Continue reading Tools – The RTOS Selection KT Marix
Embedded systems must meet their real-time deadlines in order to function efficiently and as expected. No one likes to press a button and wait thirty seconds before the system finally responds. More importantly, safety critical systems need to meet their deadlines or else very bad things could happen, such as injury or death. There are … Continue reading Tips and Tricks – 7 Tips for Meeting Real-time Deadlines
Nearly every product requires a software update at some point or another. Whether it’s our cellphones, TV’s or even our refrigerators (yea I went there). Microcontroller based systems typically aren’t running a high-level operating system that allows files to be replaced. Instead, developers need a bootloader. Microcontroller vendors have been including firmware update capabilities inside … Continue reading Tools – The Device Firmware Update (DFU) Utility
Speed is imperative in the business world. Getting to market before competitors, leading the way in innovation, the development cycle can be relentless. For embedded systems engineers, deadlines are always yesterday. There is always a push to get things done faster. How quickly can we get this done? So and so needs this as fast … Continue reading Slowing Down to Go Faster
When I’m teaching “C Programming for Embedded Systems”, I’m often asked whether the ternary operator should be used or an if/else statement. Hidden behind the question is really the need to know whether the ternary operator is more efficient than if/else. One might think that compilers today would generate identical code. Let’s take a quick … Continue reading Ternary Operator versus the if/else statement …
