Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - (Page 28) d06doug_p4db 4/18/08 8:08 AM Page 28 Core Technology BUILDING A TEST HARNESS FOR RTOS We have to push each piece of hardware to the limits of what it can be expected to provide, but not beyond requirement documents include comments on how features can be tested properly and completely in an automated fashion. If something is likely to be too difficult to test, it gets redesigned—testing has become that important to our process. We conservatively estimate that the test system saves us three man-days every workday. Consequently, we do not see maintenance of it as a chore or an expenditure. We immediately see the benefit from what we’ve done and are immediately rewarded. In our view, time and money are saved. That was valuable in getting the project started. We don’t have a large IT or testing staff to develop the system, so we have to effectively steal time and energy away from other (sometimes critical) projects. This was made easier by making the payoff immediate rather than needing to make the argument that an investment was being made and payoff would come eventually. Paradoxically, if you can show engineers how you can save them work and then actu- ally deliver, they are willing to put great effort into projects like this. This let the project snowball until it quickly became a critical component in how we develop software and plan engineering activities. All this was realized in hindsight, of course. At the time, we didn’t know that this would pay off in such a way or that it would be so well received. It was initially an experiment. Without the automated test system running all the time, our programmers would not have had the time to perform some of these “by-hand” tests. Problems with usability and documentation were discovered that wouldn’t have been found otherwise. The end result is that our system improved all aspects of our testing and developers were able to spend time on other tasks. Editor’s Note In 2007, FSMLabs sold RTLinux and RTCore to WindRiver, but licensed back rights for use in the enterprise field. FSMLabs continues to use and improve Sparky. DDJ 28 Dr. Dobb’s Journal l www.ddj.com l June 2008 http://www.codejock.com http://www.codejock.com http://www.ddj.com
Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 Contents Friday Night Fish Fry Alia Vox Developer Diaries There Must Be Contest Conversations Building a Test Harness for RTOS QT and Windows CE Software to Hardware Parallelization Performance Portable C++ Effective Concurrency The Agile Edge Swaine's Flames Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 (Page Cover1) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 (Page Cover2) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 (Page 1) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 (Page 2) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 (Page 3) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Contents (Page 4) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Contents (Page 5) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Friday Night Fish Fry (Page 6) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Friday Night Fish Fry (Page 7) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Friday Night Fish Fry (Page 8) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Friday Night Fish Fry (Page 9) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Alia Vox (Page 10) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Alia Vox (Page 11) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Alia Vox (Page 12) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Alia Vox (Page 13) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Developer Diaries (Page 14) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Developer Diaries (Page 15) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - There Must Be Contest (Page 16) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - There Must Be Contest (Page 17) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - There Must Be Contest (Page 18) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - There Must Be Contest (Page 19) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Conversations (Page 20) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Conversations (Page 21) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Building a Test Harness for RTOS (Page 22) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Building a Test Harness for RTOS (Page 23) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Building a Test Harness for RTOS (Page 24) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Building a Test Harness for RTOS (Page IBM-1) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Building a Test Harness for RTOS (Page IMB-2) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Building a Test Harness for RTOS (Page 25) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Building a Test Harness for RTOS (Page 26) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Building a Test Harness for RTOS (Page 27) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Building a Test Harness for RTOS (Page 28) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Building a Test Harness for RTOS (Page 29) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - QT and Windows CE (Page 30) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - QT and Windows CE (Page 31) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - QT and Windows CE (Page 32) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - QT and Windows CE (Page 33) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - QT and Windows CE (Page 34) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - QT and Windows CE (Page 35) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Software to Hardware Parallelization (Page 36) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Software to Hardware Parallelization (Page 37) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Software to Hardware Parallelization (Page 38) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Software to Hardware Parallelization (Page 39) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Performance Portable C++ (Page 40) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Performance Portable C++ (Page 41) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Performance Portable C++ (Page 42) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Performance Portable C++ (Page 43) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Performance Portable C++ (Page 44) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Performance Portable C++ (Page 45) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Performance Portable C++ (Page 46) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Performance Portable C++ (Page 47) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Effective Concurrency (Page 48) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Effective Concurrency (Page 49) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Effective Concurrency (Page 50) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Effective Concurrency (Page 51) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - The Agile Edge (Page 52) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - The Agile Edge (Page 53) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - The Agile Edge (Page 54) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - The Agile Edge (Page 55) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Swaine's Flames (Page 56) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Swaine's Flames (Page Cover3) Dr. Dobb's Journal - June 2008 - Swaine's Flames (Page Cover4)
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