Why Make is still relevant in 2018

Make is old-fashioned. Clunky. Weird. It even differentiates between the use of tabs and spaces in opaque and, frankly, stupid ways (don’t believe me? Look at page 281 of this document ).

But it’s the best tool for many jobs.

What shouldn’t you use make for?

Its original job.

Yes, you read right.

Its original job was to manage compilation of C programs. Clearly, you can still use it for that purpose. But in 2018, I believe you shouldn’t. There are better alternatives.

Things that shouldn't be Turing complete

I recently came across a stern warning.

It was embedded in an interesting article, which lists a number of things that weren’t expected to be Turing complete, but are.

This is more than just an amusing list of Eleven Crazy Things You Didn’t Expect To Run Code; Engineers Hate Them. Instead, it holds an important lesson.

As engineers who build systems that communicate with the outside world, we need to be aware of such surprising emerging complexity: it can lead to shocking attack vectors.

Trying out Jumper Virtual Lab, Part I: getting to blinky

I’m very excited to transfer the principles of DevOps to embedded software and the Internet of Things (gotta be buzzword-compliant), and new tools promise to get us closer to this goal.

A lot is happening in the embedded system tooling space right now; I’m hopeful that the methods used in embedded may finally catch up to the rest of software development.

A lot of startups explore new ways to aid in development, and make the difficult world of embedded development more welcoming.

DevOps engineers don't exist!

I can hear you shout all the way over here: “Luca, are you mad? I see the job adverts every day; I get recruiters pestering me all the damn time. Of course there are DevOps engineers. It says so right here!”

DevOps is about automation, and infrastructure as code, some say

Some people will tell you that DevOps is about setting up CI with Jenkins, Dockerising your infrastructure, Terraforming your company.

Why I dislike PlatformIO, part two

Why I dislike PlatformIO, part two

My previous blog post on PlatformIO sparked an interesting discussion with its creator. This led me to clarify my position somewhat.

I have decided to write this follow-up with more pointed criticism of PlatformIO.

My fundamental feeling about it is…:

PlatformIO feels unbalanced

This.

PlatformIO contains tremendously useful and (even though I hate the word) innovative features. The whole remote aspect. The ease with which new platforms can be added (even though I don’t know how relevant that is in practice – platforms are rarely changed once a decision has been made).

Why I dislike PlatformIO

Update: I’ve created a new post with a much better argument. This post will stay around for completeness.

What is PlatformIO?

In their own words: “PlatformIO is an open source ecosystem for IoT development Cross-platform build system. Continuous and IDE integration. Arduino and ARM mbed compatible”

I’m still trying to figure out the definition of “ecosystem” in this context, given what I’ve seen. I wonder if when the creators of PlatformIO find a more concrete noun, their product would also become more concrete.