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As a SW dev who frequently gets to interact with HW folks (embedded dev FTW), I frequently find their conservatism w.r.t. software tools puzzling. Dan Luu's ex
by AceJohnny2 10y ago
As a SW dev who frequently gets to interact with HW folks (embedded dev FTW), I frequently find their conservatism w.r.t. software tools puzzling.
Dan Luu's explanation makes me think they're driven by trauma inflicted by their existing tools. ;)
(but really, I figure they have enough trouble dealing with actual HW concerns that they don't have the bandwidth to deal with SW stuff not immediately relevant to their HW concerns.)
- Pica_soO 10y agoIf it works, dont fix it.
- InitialLastName 10y agoThe problems you name are true, but another issue is that errors in HW tend to be much more expensive than errors in SW. If, say, my timing analysis tool is wrong and I spin a chip based on its results, I'm out ~$100,000 and a few months of development time. That's also why we're willing to pay $thousands for licenses to proprietary SW; you want to be really confident in your tools.
- AceJohnny2 10y agoRight, except the promise of better tools is a) fewer costly errors and b) faster development time. If cost and time are what you're optimizing for, they'd be a clear better choice. But they're not. So what's missing from the picture?
- user5994461 10y ago> So what's missing from the picture? The hardware tooling suck. IMO: Hardware people suck at writing software so they can't make better. And software people don't want to get there so there is noone to do better.