3 ms·

> I think C dominates because it's a language many embedded guys, who often are EE's not CS graduates, can get their head around. I think that's a pretty unfai

by berti 8y ago

> I think C dominates because it's a language many embedded guys, who often are EE's not CS graduates, can get their head around. I think that's a pretty unfair characterization. > C is also deterministic, unlike, say, Python, where you don't have a compiler to catch type errors and things can blow up unexpectedly at run time. I've been doing a little prototyping at work recently with micropython (not my decision), and this is one of things that frustrated me. There's also lack of good tooling compared to (embedded)C/C++, and the lack of libraries. Regular pure-Python libraries either don't run, or perform very poorly because they don't stick to the subset of the standard library that's "acceptable" in micropython. It's basically a whole different ecosystem to Python, negating a lot of the advantages of Python.

01100011 8y ago
Well, that's my experience since working in embedded since '97. Remember there weren't a lot of options back then. It was the days before flash memory and you had to either use UV erasable EEPROMs or make a custom masked part. The C++ compilers were all horrible and inefficient. The debuggers barely worked. C was often your only option for a high level language, if you even had one. Some of the parts I used back then were ASM only, and if you managed to have a compiler it was so inefficient that you couldn't use it. The embedded world as I knew it was ruled by EEs. These people were barely programmers. I knew guys who would rather cut and paste code instead of make functions. Regarding embedded Python, you have my condolences. I took a job where they use it to implement most of the system level code for a safety critical device. I was excited to do more Python until I realized what a poor choice it was for embedded. Hell, I'd rather use Java because at least you have a compiler to catch a whole class of bugs. I'm old fashioned. If someone's life depends on it, write it in C, avoid dynamic allocation, and make heavy use of state machines. My friend works on satellite code and that's basically how it is. They don't even use an OS.
- berti 8y ago
  I guess the CS component of EE has grown quite a lot since back then. You learn at least a solid programming base early on, and get much deeper into CS if you go down the embedded systems path. I totally agree with everything in your last two paragraphs!

by berti 8y ago

01100011 8y ago

Well, that's my experience since working in embedded since '97. Remember there weren't a lot of options back then. It was the days before flash memory and you had to either use UV erasable EEPROMs or make a custom masked part. The C++ compilers were all horrible and inefficient. The debuggers barely worked. C was often your only option for a high level language, if you even had one. Some of the parts I used back then were ASM only, and if you managed to have a compiler it was so inefficient that you couldn't use it. The embedded world as I knew it was ruled by EEs. These people were barely programmers. I knew guys who would rather cut and paste code instead of make functions. Regarding embedded Python, you have my condolences. I took a job where they use it to implement most of the system level code for a safety critical device. I was excited to do more Python until I realized what a poor choice it was for embedded. Hell, I'd rather use Java because at least you have a compiler to catch a whole class of bugs. I'm old fashioned. If someone's life depends on it, write it in C, avoid dynamic allocation, and make heavy use of state machines. My friend works on satellite code and that's basically how it is. They don't even use an OS.

berti 8y ago
I guess the CS component of EE has grown quite a lot since back then. You learn at least a solid programming base early on, and get much deeper into CS if you go down the embedded systems path. I totally agree with everything in your last two paragraphs!