Evans Data Corp. (EDC) has released data on several findings from its recently completed survey of nearly 400 embedded developers. The data sheds light on: the value embedded developers place on real-time debuggers; how much time developers spend on hardware vs. software related issues; and, the role developers play in evaluating intellectual property (IP) issues such as SCO's recent claim that Linux...

violates its IP.

On another note, EDC found that usage of the Eclipse IDE has shown significant growth in the last year from 4% to 10% in the recent survey. All of the IDE's in the survey have gained ground on Microsoft's dominant Visual Developer Studio in the last six months, EDC said.

Below are further details on several of EDC's findings . . .

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Findings from EDC's Embedded Developer Survey -- August, 2003

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Importance of, and satisfaction with, real-time debuggers

The EDC survey found that real-time debuggers are the most important tool in the developer's tool kit. But the survey also found that real-time debuggers are less than satisfactory with more than 15 percent of developers reporting that they need improvement.

Real-time debuggers, as opposed to single-step debuggers, enable applications to run at full speed; thus, they are more apt to catch timing-critical bugs that won't show up in single-step mode. A full 68 percent of developers consider these tools to be either very important or critical to their work.



Forty percent of respondents selected real-time debuggers as "Critical to development". Second most important tool for embedded development were libraries at 27%. When ranked against the other tools in the survey, real-time debuggers had a relative ranking of 77 and libraries were second at 50.

"Relative rankings are used to compare a set of tools or technologies and measure the disparity among the set. They are calculated by assigning a weight to each response, the more positive the response the greater the weight it carries, and aggregating those weighted responses to assign a relative value and rank to each member in the set," said Brian Cooper, research director for Evans Data.

When developers were asked about their satisfaction with the various tools available for embedded development, eighteen percent of those who had an opinion on this question said they felt that real-time debuggers needed improvement. Thirteen percent felt they were already excellent. Developers are least satisfied with memory analysis tools and performance analysis/profiling tools.



Time Spent On Hardware and Software Issues

According to the survey, 97% of embedded developers split their time between hardware and software development, a sign of the ever growing trend toward design convergence.

The following two graphs illustrate the results found for hardware (above) and software (below) related development:




Once a hardware design becomes final, most hardware issues become essentially software issues, as engineers try to work around hardware bugs via software. Thus, it is easy to understand why 85 percent of respondents reported spending less than half their time dealing with hardware issues.

For the same reasons, a full 70 percent of respondents reported spending over 50 percent of their time on software issues.

Evaluation of the Intellectual Property Risks of Linux

EDC found that almost 60% of companies will evaluate the intellectual property risks of Linux in response to the SCO lawsuit. However, for 34% of respondents that task fell to the developers and engineering teams.

It is surprising that companies using Linux leave the assessment of IP risks largely in the hands of developers, who would rather focus on technical issues and, after all, have no legal expertise in the first place. It is also a little disturbing that 12 percent of respondents said they "did not consider" the IP risks of using Linux. There may be a nascent market here for training in IP issues; either that, or an open invitation for more lawyers to jump into the embedded industry.

The following graph illustrates the answer to the question, "Who was PRIMARILY involved in the intellectional property evaluation of Linux, if you have considered using it in an embedded system?" A table showing the responses appears below the graph.





Above text and graphs are copyright 2003 © Evans Data Corp. (EDC). Reproduced by WindowsForDevices.com with permission.

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