By: David P.

David P. — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:00:12 +0000

Trust me, as someone who had coded for VxWorks before, you can still make your embedded system suck if you write shitty application code for it, which is the root cause for most of these sorts of problems. And of course, like any Unix box, bad configuration can cause problems too, but this is one of the reasons VxWorks is so popular over embedded Linux.
But still, at least if you used a good embedded OS, you could use built in failure features like watchdog timers as part of your system design. Using a consumer OS with a kernel optimized for general interactivity is absurd. But the problem is, there are very few good coders embedded companies can find these days willing/able to work with unfamiliar tools on the software end, so sometimes sticking with .net on windows can be an appealing choice if you want to have an actual product to sell on budget/time. Also, years of bad apps on windows has trained end users to accept poor reliability and stability as a norm, so these manufacturers can get away with it too.

Comments on: Arrived in Spain

By: David P.