IAR Systems Embedded Development Trends 2021

Shawn Prestridge, Lead FAE Engineer and US FAE Team Manager IAR Systems

2021 may be the most highly anticipated year in quite some time, and for many reasons. In the embedded space, the biggest challenge will be the continued pressure to improve quality yet still deliver faster, especially with the rapid growth of the IIoT, IoT, 5G, AI, and cloud/edge computing.

In today’s embedded development, there is an essential need for automated processes to ensure quality, and to run builds and tests continuously. More and more companies are bringing this to the next level through the practice of Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) in their Linux-based build environments, automating the release process and making it possible to deploy the application at any time. This is being driven by the unprecedented growth of the IoT, 5G, AI, and cloud/edge computing.

Embedded teams are completing software updates faster than ever, which can be challenging in embedded software, where a small error can render a system inoperable.  CI uses a robust tool set to inspect code quality and ensure it conforms to safe, reliable coding practices and then automatically subjects the code to a rigorous battery of tests designed by the QA engineers to ensure it performs as expected. This class of automation improved development practices across industries. Automated CI essentially forces developers to write code following best practices and as people find new and better ways to add to automated testing, it will lead to the use of local copies of code analysis that desk-checks code and before it goes into a formal build.  Developers will want to be sure their code is reliable before others see it in the continuous integration output.

There is no doubt development tools will be a key factor in speeding time-to-market in 2021, but only if they are supported by in-depth, accessible technical expertise that can quickly answer questions like:  Is this a bug in the compiler tool? How do I work around it? Why won’t this interrupt trigger?  Searching through reams of documentation or spending time on manual optimization, or writing messy and often ineffective assembler code takes time and money. In 2021, embedded software developers will increasingly turn to tools that can address these problems and that are backed by a team of on-call technical experts.

Finally, documenting code adequately and accurately will be more essential than ever before, and will make the development experience better while helping your colleagues and employer. Thorough documentation is essential not only for anyone that will review or maintain the code, but also for the developers themselves. Without it, finding a bug in a section of undocumented code will take an extraordinary amount of time and work for most developers. Taking a few extra minutes to clarify the thought process in the comments could eliminate this challenge. And, let’s kill the myth that by making their code abstruse with a scarcity of comments to document it, increases job security. Job security is realized when a developer can do their job so well that a company has no reason to want to replace them. And, mentoring other people on how the code works only increases your value. Share your knowledge; that’s your true value to a company, and in 2021, it will be an enormous asset.

About the Author:

Shawn Prestridge, Lead FAE Engineer and US FAE Team Manager for IAR Systems, is responsible for globally introducing IAR System’s security technologies and development tools to the embedded market. Based in Dallas, Texas, he joined IAR Systems as a Senior Field Application Engineer in 2008. Mr. Prestridge started his career in the software industry in 1993 when he worked with Texas Instruments as an Embedded Hardware/Software Engineer. In addition, he owned Ministry of Software, an embedded development firm. Mr. Prestridge developed an expertise in cryptology and specializes in large number theory, quantum cryptography, elliptic curve cryptography, number field sieve computing, and communication encryption. His degree work includes bachelor’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics; master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and Software Engineering; and PhD in Electrical Engineering specializing in Quantum Cryptography, all from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

Tags: Predictions

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2021 at 5:39 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.