embedded software boot camp

Considerate coding

Monday, May 3rd, 2010 by Nigel Jones

One of my major recreational pursuits is bike riding. I live in a rural area with some great terrain, and more to the point a very low traffic density. Naturally on a 5 or 6 hour ride one does encounter some traffic and I’m always struck by the different degrees of consideration afforded to cyclists by motorists. Some are extremely solicitous and will wait so that they can pass you slowly and with a wide separation; others are complete jerks and will pass you as close and as fast as possible, often sounding their horn as they go by. Then there are the bulk of the drivers who will attempt to give you as much room as possible commensurate with slowing them down as little as possible. I was pondering this view of human nature yesterday while out on a ride, when it occurred to me that I see a similar range of consideration when it comes to embedded software. To see what I mean, read on …

I’ve mentioned several times in this blog that the main purpose of source code is not to generate a binary image but rather to educate those that come after you (including possibly a future version of yourself). You may or may not subscribe to this belief. However once you realize that source code often has a life of decades, and that the same source code may end up in dozens of products, then perhaps you may start to change your mind. So with this said, I think I can make a number of observations.

  1. It may be obvious to you, the author of the code, what the intended compilation platform is – after all it’s the one you are using. Alas it is not obvious to someone else who has been handed the source code and told to use it. ( I ran into this problem six months ago in which I had a vary large ARM project – but with no indication of which ARM compiler it was intended for).
  2. It may also be obvious to you what hardware platform the code is intended for – again it’s the one you are working on.
  3. It may also be obvious to you that the way to build the various targets is to change to directory X and invoke command Y with parameter Z – after all you do it ten times a day.
  4. It may also be obvious to you that the 27 warnings produced during the final build are benign – as after all you have checked them out.

However none of the above is clear to someone 5 years from now!

Clearly the above is just a partial list of what I call implicit information about a project. That is information that is essential to being able to use the code base, but which is often omitted from the documentation by the author. It’s my contention that the degree to which you explicitly provide this implicit information governs whether you are a jerk, a typical coder, or a considerate coder. Most of us (myself included) are typical coders (and I know this because I’ve seen a lot of code). If you want to make the move up to being a considerate coder, then here’s a few things I suggest you do.

  1. Place all the implicit information in main.c. Why is this you ask? Well if I was to dump three hundred source files on you, which one would you look at first? (An acceptable alternative is to state in main.c that useful information may be found in file X. Be aware however that non obvious source files sometimes get stripped out of source code archives).
  2. Include in main as a minimum information about the compiler (including its version), the intended hardware target, and how to build the code.
  3. Think for a minute or two about all the other information you are implicitly using in writing the source code and building it – and take the time to include it in main.c. Typically this includes additional tools, scripts etc.
  4. For an excellent discourse on why leaving warnings in your code is downright inconsiderate, see this posting from Alan Bowens.

If you do the above, then you are well on the way to becoming a ‘considerate coder’. Will doing this get you a pay increase, or at least a pat on the back from the boss – probably not. However just like the person who slows down and passes cyclists with a wide berth, you can go home at night knowing you aren’t a jerk. That has to be worth something.

3 Responses to “Considerate coding”

  1. Kepa Diez says:

    I absolutely subscribe this article.

    Any time spent in keeping a project mantainable always saves lots of time in the future, even in the near future. It is better to do it right in the begining, even though the pace of most projects push developers to code fast.

    Fast in the short term, of course, because in the end, good code always saves time; and having a good quality code base is a big plus. Many times it is difficult to justify the “good code” vs “fast code” dichotomy.

  2. groovyd says:

    job security is the one big reason you might prefer to be a wanker…

    • Nigel Jones says:

      I hadn’t thought about that as a reason. I can’t say I’ve ever run into someone who appeared to be intentionally making their code hard to follow / maintain so as to ensure their job security. However I have heard anecdotal reports that these people do exist. For me I take it as a a genuine success when a client of mine takes over code that I have written.

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