Embedded software development
Woodrow Wilson was noted as saying, “If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation… if an hour, I am ready now.” The quote reminded me about the differences between software development and embedded software development. Writing a program to run in a typical computing environment can be much easier and involves the consideration of fewer constraints. Writing an embedded program is likely to take longer.
Becoming a good, embedded software developer is difficult and takes a combination of software engineering skills and electronics hardware knowledge. Software developers working in embedded systems often come from an electrical engineering or electronics background and are not as strong in core computer science principles. Or they come from a computer science background and need to learn more about electronics and hardware.
Figure 13.1 shows topics that need to be considered when developing embedded software. They...