Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

users.ece.utexas.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 37 posts

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#11

Post by fest »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pay very little to do

>pay very little to do Not in Europe. Since FAANG level jobs aren't that numerous here compared to US so the difference between embedded and non-embedded work is close to zero. Pay is pretty similar. Add sure, but if your only target in life is working for FAANG & Co. then every other tech job in the world pays very little. You might as well also not want to be a doctor, teacher, lawyer, as well because hey, FAANG pa…

Yeah, I work in a robotics company in Europe- our embedded people are paid essentially the same as web/enterprise software developers in the same market. Definitely a lot less remote Opportunities (though usually for institutional reasons- most of the work can be done remotely, if company is organized for that- which not a lot are).

EEs are IMHO underpaid in both sides of the pond though.

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#12

Post by PAPPPmAc »

I teach a sophomore-level class for electrical and computer engineering majors out of the Valvano materials, we put references to the chapters in both the free online and later inexpensive print version in our materials.

It's great in many ways, and free-to-cheap which is a particularly nice quality in a textbook, but it is _quite_ out of date at this point: it's tied to the old "ARM Compiler v5" bespoke compiler rather than the "v6" LLVM-derived one, and even Keil doesn't ship with v5 anymore. v5 used a different assembly syntax (v6 is GNU style, being LLVM derived - fortunately the toolchain can still ingest v5 style assembly _files_ just not inline so we can keep the assembly the students interact with matching the book), different tooling for C/Assembly interop, and an assemblage of bespoke macros and extensions, so there has been some creative tooling work to keep the book and assignments consistent for the students.

The EK-TM4C123GXL TivaC board that is the less expensive of the two targets the Valvano materials are built around is a pretty nice if slightly expensive embedded trainer, about $20-25 for a Cortex M4F with a fairly rich assortment of peripherals, a 2nd micro configured as a programmer/in system debugger on one end of the board, easy-to-interface male AND female headers on a bunch of broken out pins, pads to tap the USB-Serial traffic while it still looks like serial, high and low speed oscillators arbitrated by a pretty fancy clock circuit, two user buttons, and an RGB LED. Powerful enough and with enough Flash and RAM to get interesting things done, not so powerful or memory rich that you can get away with modern programming decadence, and simple enough that we can talk about the nuts and bolts of any particular feature.

We construct from "Baby's first assembly program" through "Register-direct manipulation" and finally "Controlling external devices via the HAL functions" over the course of a semester. Because of the way the degree programs are structured, we're a little more focused on "This is how computers actually work" than on embedded applications, but I'm still pretty proud of the course and the students mostly seem to appreciate it.

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#13

Post by eschneider »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #3
eschneider wrote: post #2

This looks like a good resource. Remember kids, embedded systems is like retro computing that people will pay you to do. :)

pay very little to do

I don't know about that... I've done both embedded and non-embedded work and I've never had to take a pay cut to do the embedded work.

It's mostly a question of finding a company where the embedded software isn't an afterthought.

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#14

Post by tomhoward »

tonyarkles wrote: post #10
synergy20 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which open source HAL do we have these days? thanks.

I've been using Zephyr lately and have been really enjoying it. It still has the vendor HAL libraries available (e.g. Microchip/Atmel ASF), but the devicetree-based HAL has been fabulous to work with. I've tried a number of different embedded frameworks/RTOSes over the years, but it's the first that I actually feel happy using. There's a few sharp edges for sure, but it's at least an order of magnitude better than an…

This is good to hear. I'm just getting up and running with tutorials for a Nordic IoT SIP using Zephyr, with plans to develop a new model of an agricultural data monitoring/control product we've been offering for a few years. So far it seems really good. I personally have very little experience with embedded software (many years with web software) but am finding it easy to pick up.

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#15

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

kierank wrote: post #5

Seems to miss the part where it's ok to create terrible software in embedded, with custom forks of everything, binary blobs galore. But it's all fine as it shaves a few cents from the BOM.

>Seems to miss the part where it's ok to create terrible software in embedded

As opposed to the absolute perfection that is modern web, enterprise and mobile SW?

>But it's all fine as it shaves a few cents from the BOM.

Every engineering job, including SW development, works to reduce material costs and automate away other jobs. Why do you feel embedded development is somehow worse here?

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#16

Post by synergy20 »

tonyarkles wrote: post #10
synergy20 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which open source HAL do we have these days? thanks.

I've been using Zephyr lately and have been really enjoying it. It still has the vendor HAL libraries available (e.g. Microchip/Atmel ASF), but the devicetree-based HAL has been fabulous to work with. I've tried a number of different embedded frameworks/RTOSes over the years, but it's the first that I actually feel happy using. There's a few sharp edges for sure, but it's at least an order of magnitude better than an…

Great to know, Zephyr is on my to-use list and I need move it up the list more. Heard good things about it. It might become the Linux OS for low resource MCUs as the trend goes, it's also a LF(Linux foundation) project and vendor neutral, very promising.

For me my plan is to use Zephyr with RP2040.

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#17

Post by i_am_a_peasant »

fest wrote: post #11
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>pay very little to do Not in Europe. Since FAANG level jobs aren't that numerous here compared to US so the difference between embedded and non-embedded work is close to zero. Pay is pretty similar. Add sure, but if your only target in life is working for FAANG & Co. then every other tech job in the world pays very little. You might as well also not want to be a doctor, teacher, lawyer, as well because hey, FAANG pa…

Yeah, I work in a robotics company in Europe- our embedded people are paid essentially the same as web/enterprise software developers in the same market. Definitely a lot less remote Opportunities (though usually for institutional reasons- most of the work can be done remotely, if company is organized for that- which not a lot are). EEs are IMHO underpaid in both sides of the pond though.

If you're in Germany I'd like to get in on that. :P

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#18

Post by kierank »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #15
kierank wrote: post #5

Seems to miss the part where it's ok to create terrible software in embedded, with custom forks of everything, binary blobs galore. But it's all fine as it shaves a few cents from the BOM.

>Seems to miss the part where it's ok to create terrible software in embedded As opposed to the absolute perfection that is modern web, enterprise and mobile SW? >But it's all fine as it shaves a few cents from the BOM. Every engineering job, including SW development, works to reduce material costs and automate away other jobs. Why do you feel embedded development is somehow worse here?

Embedded development is substantially worse when it comes to out of tree unmaintainable kernel patches, compiler forks, binary blobs around terrible hardware etc etc.

Completely incomparable to web, enterprise and mobile (android and co is a part of the embedded trashfire of course). They all have their problems but are minor league compared to embedded development hell.

Embedded development takes BoM reduction to the extreme and piles all the technical debt onto software.

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#19

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

kierank wrote: post #18
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Seems to miss the part where it's ok to create terrible software in embedded As opposed to the absolute perfection that is modern web, enterprise and mobile SW? >But it's all fine as it shaves a few cents from the BOM. Every engineering job, including SW development, works to reduce material costs and automate away other jobs. Why do you feel embedded development is somehow worse here?

Embedded development is substantially worse when it comes to out of tree unmaintainable kernel patches, compiler forks, binary blobs around terrible hardware etc etc. Completely incomparable to web, enterprise and mobile (android and co is a part of the embedded trashfire of course). They all have their problems but are minor league compared to embedded development hell. Embedded development takes BoM reduction to th…

Binary blobs you say? How about how our entire lives are ruined by having to use garbage apps like Teams every day or any other multitude of garbage websites on a daily baiss ?

Did you actually work in the embedded industry, or are you just venting on some bad experiences you had with some boards/phones?

You know, embedded is more than r-pi clones and android devices, right? It's auomotive, aerospace, industrial automation, healthcare, etc.

I cannot overestimate how mistaken you are but you seem to be already set in your ways, and have a bone to pick so I'll leave the conversation here to save my sanity as you can't be reasoned with nor is anyone's time worth it to convince you otherwise.

Re: Embedded Systems – Shape the World (2014)

#20

Post by kierank »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #19
kierank wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Embedded development is substantially worse when it comes to out of tree unmaintainable kernel patches, compiler forks, binary blobs around terrible hardware etc etc. Completely incomparable to web, enterprise and mobile (android and co is a part of the embedded trashfire of course). They all have their problems but are minor league compared to embedded development hell. Embedded development takes BoM reduction to th…

Binary blobs you say? How about how our entire lives are ruined by having to use garbage apps like Teams every day or any other multitude of garbage websites on a daily baiss ? Did you actually work in the embedded industry, or are you just venting on some bad experiences you had with some boards/phones? You know, embedded is more than r-pi clones and android devices, right? It's auomotive, aerospace, industrial auto…

Unfortunately the industry I am in (multimedia) is slowly getting invaded by all the awful embedded development practices, binary blobs, custom forks, hacks galore. It's ruining an area where there was clean code, no blobs.

Also Linus' ARM rant for good measure: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/15/133

And imagine the stuff they didn't upstream...I'm sure that's part of some magic SDK that only works on one version of glibc and kernel.

Post reply on HN