Low Country Software Ramblings

If you’re like me, you’ll be thinking “What has he been smoking?!”

You can blame Timo for launching me down this path. He pointed to Atomic Object’s blog entries dealing with Embedded development.
The latest entry: a presentation at RubyConf 2007, on how they used Ruby with their embedded project, a PIC based system no less.

“Ruby you say!?!”

I did not say in their embedded platform.

They use it to drive their unit testing… Unit Testing?! In embedded?
Yes, Ruby driving unit testing for an embedded PIC project.

It almost makes me want to move to Western Michigan…almost.

Seriously, go take a look. This gives you a glimpse of what is possible with embedded systems. Let’s all leave the printf era behind… Go learn about unit testing, agile development, refactoring. Please.

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I got my engineering degree in Canada. Upon graduation, most students participate in the Iron Ring ceremony, where they receive a ring representing an engineer’s obligation to protect the public. You can spot a Canadian engineer by the ring worn on their pinkie. Part of the ceremony refers to Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Sons of Martha, forever toiling in obscurity so that others can enjoy a carefree life. A more contemporary interpretation would be the Morlocks in the time machine (the 1960 movie is a nice rendition of the H.G. Wells novel). I don’t fancy myself a cannibalistic cave dwelling troglodyte. Others might disagree.

People working in the embedded field are very much like the Sons of Martha (or the Morlocks) working in the shadows so the world at large can be a better place. embedded systems are, by their very nature, invisible.
The programming world is far from homogeneous. It has many tribes and subcultures. Some of the more obvious include Open Source, Linux, Microsoft, methodologists, academics and a number or language oriented tribes.

Each of the tribes have their rock stars. Open Source has Richard Stallman and Eric S. Raymond. Linux obviously has Linus. Microsoft (the ecosystem, not the company) has many figures with a high profile: Scott Hanselman, Carl Franklin & Richard Campbell (via DNR), BradA, ScottGu and plenty of others. Methodologists such as Kent Beck, Booch and Jackobson all left a mark. The ultimate academic Rock Star is of course Donald Knuth.

However, the embedded world does not seem to have the same figures. Jack Ganssle and Jack Crenshaw are probably the two most visible, due to their longstanding association with Embedded Systems Journal. This is very strange, as embedded software programming is a very large segment of the programming world. This reality is also reflected in the lack of on-line blogs targetting the embedded world. I dont believe the fragmented nature of the embedded world is entirely responsible for this state of affairs.

Is it that embedded programmers are more introverted than the rest? Are we simply the Morlocks to the larger community’s Elois? Am I simply blind and can’t see our own Rock Stars? What do you think, who are the embedded rock stars?

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Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror recently talked about two types of programmers (triggered by Ben Collins-Sussman’s source control comments). The top 20% which are interested in professional development, and the remaining 80% which are more like 9-5 clock workers, and are not doing the magazines/blogs/conferences thing. As Jeff clarified, here’s not dissing the 80%, just pointing out that they are unreachable by conventional means.

By Jeff’s definition, I’m one of the Alpha 20% programmer by virtue of the fact that I’m a compulsive book buyer and avid blog reader. Maybe I’m just feeling insecure today, but I don’t feel like a top 20% guy. Let’s look at the competition who else would be in here:

Jeff Atwood himself…come on, he averaged more than 1 post per day over the last 4 years…
Roy Osherove, creator of The Regulator, good blogger on all things TDD, and darn funny singer.
Larry O’Brien, who is creating a new language (called Rinq).
Scott Hanselman, blogger extraordinaire who does the 3 most stress inducing things known to man at the same time.
Joel Spolsky (and any of his crew)…yes, he traded in his design chops for business ones…but anyone launching his own MBA program is a top 20%. Beside, anybody that goes through his ringer of a hiring process is top 1% material.
Anyone at Object Mentor (Bob, Jr., …)
All the deep thinkers out there who write about methodologies while bringing home the bacon (Kent Beck, Mike Cohn, etc…)
All the technical authors who end up being paid a pittance for books with a limited audience.

You will notice that all of the above, by virtue of their writing, could be classified as “communicators”. Clearly the exception when it comes to the programming & engineering world. But what about the “silent majority”, who are not so talkative:

Rick Brewster of Paint.NET
Miguel de Icaza of Mono fame
The 37signals crew (Ruby On Rails anyone?)
all those college kids pumped on caffeine who do incredible things: Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg (regardless of whether he is snotty or not) and others.

Dang! They all seem to have blogs…maybe that’s the new 20%, you have to have a blog?
With all those Alpha programmers out there, I can’t help but feel intimidated. Maybe I’m just at the shallow end of the deep pool.

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