[BookDigest]: 現代嵌入式系統開發專案實務

2008-09-14

＂現代嵌入式系統開發專案實務－菜鳥成長日誌與專案經理的私房菜＂, by 邱毅凌

It is unusual that a local published book targeting for embedded design practices, mainly SW and FW, in such a proficient and systematic way.

I was always wondering how those so called "SW engineers" did project. Always heard "complex, difficult, hard bugs, linux kernel, drivers, boot-loader,.......", "delay and again delay......", "customer complaint", "new feature", "release"....... one word: chaotic, no end light.

What I saw:

1. started from beginning, Do, Do, Do.......and Demo/release

2. no spec.

3. so source code management, sometimes you just couldn't get it.

4. resource not sufficient, mostly only driver engineers equipped.

5. No integration flow

6. Lack of test, verification practices

7. Lack of engineering management, but outward management

8. w/o architecture

9. They couldn't tell others in brief, ex in one slide, about what they were doing.

Strange to me, what has made this. What is our problem here in engineer training and education?

SW engineers complained that they are secondary, compared to HW engineers, even worse, they got paid less than HW engineers. One possible cause, I guess: we are making and selling HW products which really/physically count in terms of price. What is the value of SW? It supposed to be low risk. Right?

Seems now the weighting of HW and SW has already changed, the SW complexity and head counts dramaticly go up in development team. Already invested very much in HW development and manufacturing, but still too less in SW side. Further, the slower learning curve makes it worse.

Any way, this is a good book and good start for this field and for those probies like me.