Work Environment and Workflow Optimization

The first step toward a successful software project is choosing the right tools. Embedded development requires a set of hardware and software instruments that make the developer's life easier, and may significantly improve productivity and cut down the total development time. This chapter is meant to provide a description of the tools, and give advice on how to use them, to improve the workflow. The first section gives an overview of the workflow in native C programming, and gradually reveals the changes necessary to translate the model to an embedded development environment. Then, the GCC toolchain, a set of development tools to build the embedded application, is introduced through the analysis of its components. Finally, in the last two sections, strategies of interaction with the target are proposed, to provide mechanisms for the debug and validation of the embedded software running on the platform.

The topics covered in this chapter are:

• Workflow overview
• The GCC toolchain
• Interaction with the target
• Validation