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Category Archives: Design Issues
Debunking priority
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
Before I start, a disclaimer:
For the purposes of this article I’m limiting the discussion to even-driven systems on priority-based, pre-emptive operating systems, on single processors.
I’m using the word task to mean ‘unit of execution’ or ‘unit of schedulability’, in preference to thread or process. I’m ignoring the different OS memory models.
There seems to be a fair amount of misunderstanding about the concept of priority in concurrent programming:
Priority means one task is more ’important’ than another.
Priority allows one task to […]
Posted in Design Issues, RTOS
Tagged event-driven, multi-tasking, multi-threading, priority, RTOS, task
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Style vs. Substance in C programming
Director at Feabhas Limited
Co-Founder and Director of Feabhas since 1995.
Niall has been designing and programming embedded systems for over 30 years. He has worked in different sectors, including aerospace, telecomms, government and banking.
His current interest lie in IoT Security and Agile for Embedded Systems.
Niall has been designing and programming embedded systems for over 30 years. He has worked in different sectors, including aerospace, telecomms, government and banking.
His current interest lie in IoT Security and Agile for Embedded Systems.
Latest posts by Niall Cooling (see all)
- Navigating Memory in C++: A Guide to Using std::uintptr_t for Address Handling - February 22, 2024
- Embedded Expertise: Beyond Fixed-Size Integers; Exploring Fast and Least Types - January 15, 2024
- Disassembling a Cortex-M raw binary file with Ghidra - December 20, 2022
In an email from UBM Tech this week there was a link to an article titled “A Simple Style for C Programming by Mansi Research“. It was actually authored back on May 2010 by Meetul Kinariwala but appeared this week under the what’s hot section, so I thought I’d take a look [advice to the reader; don’t bother].
The problem with guides like this is that style is a very subjective area (as any parent will tell you how their kids […]
Posted in C/C++ Programming, Design Issues, General
Tagged astyle, MISRA-C, Static Analysis
7 Comments
Sailing the Seven C’s of design*
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
I’m always looking for nice little mnemonics to help out remember the important concepts in design. Here’s one for model-driven development I call the “Seven C’s”. It basically enumerates the seven stages a design goes through, from initial idea to code.
CONCEPT The Concept phase is about understanding the problem. In other words: requirements analysis. When you’re in Concept mode your main focus is on validation – am I solving the right problem for my […]
Posted in Design Issues
Tagged design, MDA, MDD, methodologies, modelling, techniques, UML
2 Comments
Capturing the Stripe-d Flag 2.0 – The After Party
Director at Feabhas Limited
Co-Founder and Director of Feabhas since 1995.
Niall has been designing and programming embedded systems for over 30 years. He has worked in different sectors, including aerospace, telecomms, government and banking.
His current interest lie in IoT Security and Agile for Embedded Systems.
Niall has been designing and programming embedded systems for over 30 years. He has worked in different sectors, including aerospace, telecomms, government and banking.
His current interest lie in IoT Security and Agile for Embedded Systems.
Latest posts by Niall Cooling (see all)
- Navigating Memory in C++: A Guide to Using std::uintptr_t for Address Handling - February 22, 2024
- Embedded Expertise: Beyond Fixed-Size Integers; Exploring Fast and Least Types - January 15, 2024
- Disassembling a Cortex-M raw binary file with Ghidra - December 20, 2022
Following on from our previous article looking at Stripe’s Capture the Flag 2.0 challenge, Team Feabhas cracked the last of the levels and its members should hopefully be receiving their complementary t-shirts soon.
It has proven to be a popular article with lots of people coming to the blog for solutions and walk-through, and now that the competition has finished we have decided to share the way we approached each of these levels, their solution and the way in which the […]
Posted in Design Issues, General, Testing
Tagged linux, walkthrough, web security. strip ctf
2 Comments
Can existing embedded applications benefit from Multicore Technology?
Director at Feabhas Limited
Co-Founder and Director of Feabhas since 1995.
Niall has been designing and programming embedded systems for over 30 years. He has worked in different sectors, including aerospace, telecomms, government and banking.
His current interest lie in IoT Security and Agile for Embedded Systems.
Niall has been designing and programming embedded systems for over 30 years. He has worked in different sectors, including aerospace, telecomms, government and banking.
His current interest lie in IoT Security and Agile for Embedded Systems.
Latest posts by Niall Cooling (see all)
- Navigating Memory in C++: A Guide to Using std::uintptr_t for Address Handling - February 22, 2024
- Embedded Expertise: Beyond Fixed-Size Integers; Exploring Fast and Least Types - January 15, 2024
- Disassembling a Cortex-M raw binary file with Ghidra - December 20, 2022
It feels that not a day goes by without a new announcement regarding a major development in multicore technology. With so much press surrounding multicore, you have to ask the question “Is it for me?” i.e. can I utilise multicore technology in my embedded application?
However, from a software developer’s perspective, all the code examples seem to demonstrate the (same) massive performance improvements to “rendering fractals” or “ray tracing programs”. The examples always refer to Amdahl’s Law, showing […]
Posted in ARM, Cortex, Design Issues, General, Industry Analysis
Tagged OpenCL, OpenMP, SMP, TBB
6 Comments
The Five Orders of Ignorance
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
It’s not often you read a paper that has something unique and fresh to say about a topic, and expresses it in a clear and concise way.
Somehow, Phillip Armour’s The Five Orders of Ignorance had eluded me, until I found it referenced in another paper.
It really is an interesting point of view on software development. You can read the paper here.
Armour’s central tenet is software is a mechanism for capturing knowledge. That is, (correct) software is the result of having […]
More appalling user interface design
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
I came across a wonderfully counter-intuitive piece of user interface design this week.
The room I was in had a sliding shutter (that, for reasons best known to the architects, opened into the main building and not outside). The two halves of the shutter are controlled independently – that is, you can close one side or the other, or both. Each shutter is controlled with independent switch panels.
Common sense would suggest a single rocker switch: pushing one side would close the […]
Releasing Code
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
The Release process
The Release process defines the actions required to deliver a software product to an external customer. The external customer is any entity outside the development department. This may be a true (paying) customer, or may be another engineering department, for example Testing or Production.
The Release process is a triggered activity. The trigger events are scheduled as part of project planning. Defining a release is a project milestone which must define
What will be released
When it will be released […]
Posted in Design Issues
Tagged Alpha, Beta, Change Management, CM, Configuration Management, Release, Release Management, Revision Control, Testing
3 Comments
Change Management
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
Change Management is concerned with the proposal, selection and scheduling of changes during the lifecycle of a project.
Change Management is interlinked with, but separate to, Revision Control.
Change Management is the core to controlling your development processes. Without effective Change Management the management of your project is subject to slavish adherence to a (fixed, and pre-determined) project plan, with no mechanism for dealing with inevitable changes in requirements, design, implementation or testing.
It is no surprise that Change Management is at the […]
Posted in Design Issues
Tagged Change Management, Change Policy, Change Request, CM, Configuration Management, CR, Revision Control
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Baselines and Branching
Technical Consultant at Feabhas Ltd
Glennan is an embedded systems and software engineer with over 20 years experience, mostly in high-integrity systems for the defence and aerospace industry.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
He specialises in C++, UML, software modelling, Systems Engineering and process development.
Latest posts by Glennan Carnie (see all)
- Practice makes perfect, part 3 – Idiomatic kata - February 27, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 2– foundation kata - February 13, 2020
- Practice makes perfect, part 1 – Code kata - January 30, 2020
A baseline is an identified set of files and directories in which there is one and only one version of each file and directory.
A baseline identifies one particular configuration of the software (or a subset thereof)
The baseline represents a fixed point in the development; that may be recreated as required.
Specifying a Baseline
A baseline defines a set of files, each at a particular version. These need not be the latest (most recent) version. A baseline label uniquely identifies the configuration. Files […]
Posted in Design Issues
Tagged Baseline, Branching, CM, Configuration Management, pattern, Revision Control
1 Comment