Hardware Podcasts

53: Being a Grownup Engineer (Repeat)

Embedded.fm · 28 Sept 2016 · 1h 05m

What this episode covers

Jack Ganssle, author of 'The Art of Designing Embedded Systems' and 'The Embedded Systems Dictionary', argues that embedded software development has failed to adopt true engineering discipline, relying on 'heroics' rather than process. He cites the Toyota unintended acceleration case, where Michael Barr identified 11,000 global variables, as evidence of the catastrophic costs of poor software practices. Ganssle advocates for rigorous requirements gathering, static analysis tools like LDRA and Spark, and metrics-driven benchmarking to reduce debugging time and improve code quality. He contrasts this disciplined approach with the 'hacker' and 'maker' cultures, emphasizing that safety-critical systems require proven processes rather than ad-hoc coding.

Most relevant to

established companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Toyota, iRobot, ARM
Tools
LDRA
Also
Jack Ganssle, Michael Barr, Spark, Ada, Circuit Cellar, EDN, IEEE, Capers Jones, James Grenning, Joel Spolski, Steve Leapson

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