3 ms·

Pros often use commercially licensed IDEs like Keil or IAR Workbench and a bunch of other tools that only run on Windows (no matter how much they dislike Window

Pros often use commercially licensed IDEs like Keil or IAR Workbench and a bunch of other tools that only run on Windows (no matter how much they dislike Windows personally). Setting up a toolchain from scratch sounds like what hackers (i.e. those who are not professional embedded devs getting paid for such work) would do.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Exactly. Setting up your GNU based embedded toolchains and make-files from scratch is something that hackers/hobbyists do. In production, where you have deadlines to build firmware that is set to ship on millions of units, and your company's future is on the line, you just buy how many Windows Keil/IAR licenses you need, and get on with your work, regardless of how you feel about proprietary software.
- RealityVoid 4y ago
  Curious if you work in the field. Because in my experience, it's not like that at all. YMMV, I guess.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >Curious if you work in the field I do work in the filed yes, worked in automotive, semiconductor and IoT. >Because in my experience, it's not like that at all. In what way is it "not like that"?
    - RealityVoid 4y ago
      The IDE's I've seen are mostly used for the debugging magic, and the toolchain used for building is some customized thing. I work in automotive.
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        >the toolchain used for building is some customized thing. I work in automotive. That's because in automotive the microcontrollers are more complex, with multiple cores of different types doing different things, so the build process is more complex therefore the final binary goes through several steps like patching various calibration data, FPGA bit-streams, cyptopgraphic keys, fuses, debug data, etc. but even so, those custom toolchains still call a comercial compiler via command line using some perl/python scrips at the end of the day. You can script same steps with IAR or Keil if you wish, their compiler support the same command line functionality, except that in IoT we mostly used their solution 'as-is' since it worked well with their debuggers out of the box meaning quicker time to market. Automotive development has a lot more crust in general due to legacy, safety, legal, plus bs stuff like the entire Autosar stack needing to be added to each build whether you need it all or not so a lot of inefficiencies build up over time due to this inertia leading to some insanely complex and lengthy build processes.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    Right :-) Remembering the lengths a former employer would go to fit code into the 32kB limit of a free dev tool because they didn't want to shell out for the unlimited paid version.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      No offense, but that sounds like a poorly funded company. We had the opposite experience, we paid for IAR since that was the only compiler to generate binary compact enough to fit in the 256KB version of the chip and not have us spend extra to upgrade to the more expensive 512KB SKU. If you're laughing at this, do note that at scale, costs add up significantly even if we're talking about $.50 and a license to a good compiler and debugger can have an amazing return on investment.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
        > No offense, but that sounds like a poorly funded company. None taken. Not just poorly funded, but often penny-wise and pound-foolish. That's one of many reasons they're a former employer.
RealityVoid 4y ago
Honestly, those ide's suck. Most of the time we only would use them for debugging, but the build system was usually some home grown thing. You get better control. The startup code really depends, you can use the stuff from the vendor, but a lot of the times, the needs are specific so you might roll that up as well.
HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
If fsking hate IAR Workbench and can't believe that it exists in this day and age. Especially when PlatformIO with STM32 plugins is free.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

Exactly. Setting up your GNU based embedded toolchains and make-files from scratch is something that hackers/hobbyists do. In production, where you have deadlines to build firmware that is set to ship on millions of units, and your company's future is on the line, you just buy how many Windows Keil/IAR licenses you need, and get on with your work, regardless of how you feel about proprietary software.

RealityVoid 4y ago
Curious if you work in the field. Because in my experience, it's not like that at all. YMMV, I guess.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >Curious if you work in the field I do work in the filed yes, worked in automotive, semiconductor and IoT. >Because in my experience, it's not like that at all. In what way is it "not like that"?
  - RealityVoid 4y ago
    The IDE's I've seen are mostly used for the debugging magic, and the toolchain used for building is some customized thing. I work in automotive.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      >the toolchain used for building is some customized thing. I work in automotive. That's because in automotive the microcontrollers are more complex, with multiple cores of different types doing different things, so the build process is more complex therefore the final binary goes through several steps like patching various calibration data, FPGA bit-streams, cyptopgraphic keys, fuses, debug data, etc. but even so, those custom toolchains still call a comercial compiler via command line using some perl/python scrips at the end of the day. You can script same steps with IAR or Keil if you wish, their compiler support the same command line functionality, except that in IoT we mostly used their solution 'as-is' since it worked well with their debuggers out of the box meaning quicker time to market. Automotive development has a lot more crust in general due to legacy, safety, legal, plus bs stuff like the entire Autosar stack needing to be added to each build whether you need it all or not so a lot of inefficiencies build up over time due to this inertia leading to some insanely complex and lengthy build processes.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  Right :-) Remembering the lengths a former employer would go to fit code into the 32kB limit of a free dev tool because they didn't want to shell out for the unlimited paid version.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    No offense, but that sounds like a poorly funded company. We had the opposite experience, we paid for IAR since that was the only compiler to generate binary compact enough to fit in the 256KB version of the chip and not have us spend extra to upgrade to the more expensive 512KB SKU. If you're laughing at this, do note that at scale, costs add up significantly even if we're talking about $.50 and a license to a good compiler and debugger can have an amazing return on investment.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
      > No offense, but that sounds like a poorly funded company. None taken. Not just poorly funded, but often penny-wise and pound-foolish. That's one of many reasons they're a former employer.

RealityVoid 4y ago

Honestly, those ide's suck. Most of the time we only would use them for debugging, but the build system was usually some home grown thing. You get better control. The startup code really depends, you can use the stuff from the vendor, but a lot of the times, the needs are specific so you might roll that up as well.

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago

If fsking hate IAR Workbench and can't believe that it exists in this day and age. Especially when PlatformIO with STM32 plugins is free.