The editors of Embedded Systems Design recently put together an interesting historical timeline of the embedded systems industry. To learn some history, take a stroll over to http://www.embedded.com/timeline/.
Posts Tagged ‘trends’
Embedded Systems History
Thursday, February 28th, 2008 Michael BarrTags: embedded, trends
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Kill the Patent Office
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 Michael BarrI’m not sure what to make of all the criticism of and suggested improvement to the U.S. patent system. However, I found this article thought-provoking:
Tags: patents, trends
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Embedded C Quiz Results
Monday, February 11th, 2008 Michael BarrWhen we redesigned the Netrino.com website late last year, we thought it’d be fun to challenge our more than 20,000 monthly visitors (mostly embedded software engineers) to a skills test. So we developed a ten question multiple-choice quiz (http://www.netrino.com/Embedded-Systems/Embedded-C-Quiz). And it has been a popular feature of the new site, with a couple hundred participants just in the first two months.
And now the results are starting to come in. We analyzed the early results a couple of ways and discovered something worth talking about: Quiz takers from India did about the same as quiz takers in the U.S. But the rest of the world lagged behind these two groups quite a bit.
There are ten questions in our quiz, and we consider a passing score to be 8 out of 10. A handful of quiz takers have scored 100%, but most score in the 30-90% range, with an overall average at 60.4%. (A little scary, huh?)
Statisically speaking, there were three significant groups of quiz takers by geography. The average score of those taking the quiz from the United States was just shy of 64%. The average for India was not far behind at about 61.2%. However, the rest of the world scored an average of just 55.9%.
What does this say about the state of the profession of embedded software development? Offshoring? The quiz itself?
Tags: education, embedded, india, outsourcing, programming, trends
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Breathalizer Source Code to Get a Day in Court
Thursday, February 7th, 2008 Michael BarrHere’s an interesting news story at the intersection of embedded systems and due process:
http://www.news.com/Police-Blotter-Intoxilyzer-code-must-be-disclosed/2100-1030_3-6227951.html
How many potential bugs might a knowledgable expert witness spot in your code? Are the comments in your source accurate and clean enough for a judge or jury to read?
Tags: embedded, ethics, programming, trends
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Twenty Years of Embedded Systems Design
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 Michael BarrIt’s hard to believe, but industry magazine Embedded Systems Design, which I edited for five years from 1999 to 2004, is this year celebrating its twentieth continuous year in print.
The popular magazine, which was titled Embedded Systems Programming for about the first 16 years, started its run in 1988, at a time when the widespread use of assembly language was challenged by some engineers as inefficent compared with coding in raw hex. There were then dozens of dialects of the C language, which few embedded developers used, but a committee at ANSI was actively working on the standard that would ultimately win.
The passing of this event brings two interesting thoughts to my mind. One about the past, the other about the future.
Looking backward, I wonder just how much the embedded developer community owes to Ted Bahr and Tyler Sperry (the founding publisher and editor-in-chief, respectively) for giving us the name “Embedded Systems”. Although the concept of embedding microcontrollers into products dates back 17 years earlier (to the introduction of the 4004 single-chip micro by Intel in 1971), the name embedded systems was made popular by the success of the magazine and associated Embedded Systems Conference.
Looking forward, though, I wonder just how much longer the print magazine is for the world. Tremendous changes have rocked the universe of print media–even just in the four years since I left the editor-in-chief role at Embedded Systems Programming. Both the number of subscribers and the number of pages in the print magazine peaked during my tenure, at about 70,000 and over 120, respectively. Today, the circulation is down considerably and the typical number of pages is around a third of that peak. Online advertising has changed the game for most technology companies, who no longer find the unmeasurable and expensive investment in print ads their only option.
What do you think?
Tags: embedded, trends
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