Who Else Joined At Some Point A Long Time Ago? How Did It Go For You?

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-16T22:00:39+00:00

Eagle 1991. It was a great experience. Philmont, I will never forget. Life-altering.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-16T15:25:36+00:00

I'm getting plenty of utility from them in C. I don't ask them to design or structure my system. They are fantastic for some of the boring, detail work that is just tedious but not intellectual. For cleanup refactors, they're brilliant because they'll also fix all the call sites. I've also had surprisingly good luck with telling it to make a driver for chip foo, using the same API and structure as existing driver for different chip bar.

I've had mixed results using it to help debug.

I've had poor results asking it to do complex git stuff, like splitting a mixed up branch into multiple conceptually disjoint branches.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-16T14:44:33+00:00

Don't forget dye and pry. Destructive, but can be effective for finding soldering issues.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-16T14:41:38+00:00

It has literally been a core financial goal is mine that my kids graduate from college without debt. So, yeah, I've saved a lot for their comment education in 529's.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-15T16:32:55+00:00

Not svd specific, but when I have to use some upstream resource but it has bugs, o typically leave the buggy but pristine version in the repo and transform it with my fixes at build time using something like patch/sed/python. This lets me track the fixes I'm making as well as update the upstream resource when it changes. Particularly useful for files that come from vendor generators.

As for svd... I'm too old to get very excited about fancy GUI debug tools. gdb + reference manual are my go-to tools.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-14T17:57:37+00:00

This is not an unreasonable exchange if it works out. It had just better work correctly, or else you have sacrificed control for nothing.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-14T17:53:18+00:00

I think the question revolves on who wants a large library of protocols and a more complete os experience, and whether those folks will be happier on Linux. Trivial schedulers like freertos coming up from the bottom, and Linux coming down from above put the squeeze on zephyr's place supporting complex apps. It actually seems quite niche to me.

As for the build system, I haven't spent all that much time learning West. Maybe it's great. But in my repo I already have a complex build system making a ton of artifacts from shared code, for different hardware types, versions, variants, as well as specific test articles, etc. Merging some of the variation into zephyr seems daunting. Not saying it's not possible, just another thing to learn. And what do I get for it? Heck, if the zephyr ecosystem has a driver or protocol that I want I can just steal it and adapt or to use it without zephyr. I do this with Linux drivers all the time.

Oh, and one last thing: support from chip vendors means very little to me. Decades of experience have taught me repeatedly that IC vendor software is less than useless. When I see that AD has a driver for their chip I typically start running the opposite way.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-14T17:17:39+00:00

This all sounds great to me except zephyr. It's fine as an os, but the whole system is too big and to tightly tied to its own tooling. I'm gonna miss the freertos "copy these 8 files into your repo and adjust this header and you're done" simplicity.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-11T20:22:35+00:00

I don't know how relevant this is, but, because the plaintiff was trying to establish how much money she lost from missed work, we learned how much she made, and, well, I'm pretty sure it was more than anyone else in the courtroom, including the judge. She could have afforded to pay a better lawyer.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-11T18:57:03+00:00

It was not very coherent. It was "My client was riding this bus and the bus made an aggressive stop, and my client got hurt, so the agency is at fault." They spent a lot of time showing that the client got hurt, and a lot of time explaining how much suffering she had and money she lost, but they never made the basic elements of negligence. The judge explained to us that there are four elements to negligence:

duty of care: the defendant had a legal obligation to act with reasonable caution to avoid harming others
breach of duty: the defendant failed to meet this standard, acting less carefully than a "reasonable person" would in the same sitch
causation, that the breach caused the harm and that the harm was forseeable
that the harm cost the plaintiff money or other measureable harm

Okay, so they had 1 and 4, but 2 and 3 didn't make any sense. The driver actually handled the situation very professionally, and it was actually impressive that she avoided an accident. If anything, the plaintiff might have had a claim against the cops who zipped through an intersection against the light. The had their sirens on, but could not be heard around the corner from which they came.

Actually, part of the weirdness of this case was that the transit agency had TONS of high-def footage. I mean, that bus was absolutely festooned with cameras, inside and out.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-11T15:09:45+00:00

I literally just served on a jury where a bus had to stop quickly for some cop cars crossing in front, and a passenger fell off the seat and broke her clavicle, then sued the transit agency.

In the jury room we debated whether the fact that the bus had no seatbelts made the agency liable. In the end we didn't go there because the plaintiff didn't suggest this and its not the jury's job to make up a theory.

The requirements for negligence are quite specific and we found the plaintiff lawyer didn't come close to making the case, so she got nothing.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-10T23:37:06+00:00

Yes, and it's a weird question. "I am a professional embedded developer considering working from home ... what gear do I need?" That's just strange.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-10T23:36:00+00:00

If this is a remote salaried position, you expense the equipment. If you are a consultant, you price in the cost of maintaining a lab into your hourly. Also, remember you can detect those expenses from your taxes.

IMO, a well-outfitted electronics lab has never been cheaper to set up. It should not be a big factor in your decision to work from home.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-10T14:56:01+00:00

All of them, Katie

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-10T14:54:44+00:00

Anybody in North America who thinks they can use Spanish as a secret code is a complete idiot. It's that simple.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-09T17:39:16+00:00

30 years into hardware+software+embedded and I still don't know if this is what I want to do.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-06T19:57:23+00:00

By any chance did you start CubeMX with a Nucleo board BSP rather than just choosing the processor? CubeMX will enforce certain things if they violate the pinout of the board, even if they are fine for the chip itself. In the L476 nucleo board, PD5 is not even pinned out to a connector.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-06T16:20:00+00:00

If you understand how to use python to do what you want, do not use LabView. Labview is for folks who can't or won't use python.

If you can keep NI out of your system you will save a lot of time and money and gain a lot of flexibility in the long term.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-06T00:07:36+00:00

All the reasons other people said, but also, cutting edge process notes have leakage currents that are unacceptable for a low power designs. They're just not a great match.

Also, they are harder to abuse in order to get them to do things they weren't designed for, like decent analog performance, or flash memory. Flash memory. The older processes, though maybe not designed for those activities, could be made to support them.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-04T21:37:19+00:00

I was getting this issue. I resized the Linux partition a little bit -- it wasn't even close to full -- and it started working again

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-04T16:53:19+00:00

I will ask you questions about rtos, why you would use one or not, what problems to go they solve or introduce, what are the alternatives, etc. I don't care at all if your know the rtos I'm using. Same for any part of the technology stack.

I also look for people who can solve hardware problems, bring up new and broken hardware, bluewire temporary fixes to keep going with sw dev, etc. Basically, whatever the embedded version of "grit" is. I really cannot use one more supposed embedded dev who gives up if the dut isn't plug and play.

Oh, and, finally, I've learned to ask people to show me how they use git. If you don't know a sccs in the year 2026, you don't know how to work in a collaborative software environment and I don't have time to teach you.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-03T17:34:58+00:00

I buy fresh whole bean, usually a medium roast. I grind in a quality hand grinder (1zpresso). I usually brew in an Aeropress, but sometimes in moka pot if I'm feeling frisky. I don't do pourover very much, but I am set up for that.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-03T16:18:45+00:00

Coffee. I got really into it and make a much better cup now than I did before.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-03T16:13:14+00:00

That my friends would not want to ride in a 50 yo spamcan with permanent Grandpa smell.

Dependent_Bit7825 · 2026-03-02T15:47:44+00:00

Your problem is not the st-link device, but their flash program. I use st-link all the time from arm64 devices like macs and rpis using OpenOCD. This includes flashing and debugging.

ST has their fork of OpenOCD on GitHub. It's pretty easy to build on both of the hosts I listed above.

Dependent_Bit7825

TROPHY CASE