Tag: Lessons from the Field

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When Updating an Untested Module, Take the Opportunity to Add Tests

I want to come clean: I've spent most of my career to date manually testing the code I've written. This might surprise people who have known me or read my work for years, because I have spent the majority of my career extolling the benefits of CI pipelines and automated testing for embedded systems. But …

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Q&A: How do you Select Thread Priorities to Improve Performance?

Intended Audience: People who are interested in adjusting thread priorities to improve their system’s performance and/or responsiveness. We’ve fielded multiple questions recently that follow this general pattern: The number of threads in my system are growing, and finding the best priority settings to optimize performance using trial and error is too cumbersome. How should I …

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Aaron’s Advice to Up-and-Coming Embedded Developers

Today we have a guest post from Aaron Fontaine.  Aaron is an embedded software developer with a passion for the craft and a commitment to ongoing learning.  He likes understanding things not just from the engineering perspective, but from the customer and management perspectives as well. You can find Aaron on GitHub and LinkedIn. This …

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Here’s what a 1963 Leadership Masterpiece Has to Say About Managing Projects

I am a fan of the Jocko Podcast. Over the past few months I have been listening to the episodes on General Bruce C. Clarke's 1963 book, Guidelines for Leaders and Commanders. I highly recommend this series to anyone in a leadership position. This series is also valuable for contractors and consultants, many of whom …

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Ending the Embedded Software Dark Ages: Let’s Start With Processor Fault Debugging!

There are certain skills that mark you as being a grizzled, battle-hardened embedded systems veteran. One that stands out is being able to debug a processor hard fault with ease. Even more so if you know how to build the infrastructure to support such debugging efforts. I remember the first time I encountered a processor …

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Are you a Consultant or Contractor? Score Yourself Against these “Patterns of Successful Contractors” from a 1963 Leadership Masterpiece

I am a fan of the Jocko Podcast. Over the past few months I have been listening to the episodes on General Bruce C. Clarke's 1963 book, Guidelines for Leaders and Commanders. I highly recommend this series to anyone in a leadership position. This series is also valuable for contractors and consultants, many of whom …

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Optimizing Power Consumption in Battery-Powered Devices

Today we have a guest post from Silard Gal, an embedded systems designer. He has worked on many prototypes for companies around the World and his focus now is smart city hardware and software. You can contact him via LinkedIn. Your new IoT device is ready. It’s finally booting, communicating, and reading sensors. You feel awesome! …

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