A letter to embedded linux students

For new users who have just entered the embedded field, I don't want to talk too much about technical issues, due to technical issues, many senior lecturers from the far-sighted perspective of Huaqing will give you a detailed explanation in future courses, and the trainees can gradually deepen their research and improve themselves in the long embedded development career. But a good programming habit needs to be developed at the beginning of learning. What kind of learning habits and programming habits will have a significant impact on the programmer's life.

1. master basic knowledge

Different from the Development of windows, in the development process of linux, we have almost always been faced with simple text interfaces and manipulation commands, therefore, mastering these basic commands is essential for Embedded linux developers.

Installation and logon:
Login, shutdown, halt, reboot, mount, umount, chsh;

File Processing:
File, mkdir, grep, dd, find, mv, ls, diff, cat, ln;

Network Operation:
Ifconfig, ip, ping, netstat, telnet, ftp, route, rlogin rcp, finger, mail, nslookup;

System Management:
Df, top, free, quota, at, lp, adduser, groupadd kill, crontab, tar, unzip, gunzip, and last;

System Security:
Passwd, Su, umask, chgrp, chmod, chown, chattr, sudo, and pswho.

Of course, the basic commands familiar with Linux only allow you to easily build a harmonious development environment. As a developer, it is necessary to master a development language, usually, many embedded development language applications are C/C ++. I believe that the existence of each dream as a great programmer will not be ignored, A programmer can't even talk about development in a basic development language? Another important thing we will face in the future is our editor. There is a powerful editor that can help you get twice the result with half the effort. In Linux, the most powerful is to count our VI text editor. The use of the VI editor will be explained in detail in the far-sighted Training Course of Huaqing. In addition, some tips on VI that can improve our work efficiency will be introduced in my blog.

In addition, since it is embedded development, it requires us not only to master the soul of embedded development-programming language, but also to fully understand the physical body of embedded development-hardware structure. Different from PC software development, embedded development is inseparable from hardware. Therefore, every embedded developer needs to be familiar with the hardware features you want to manipulate. In this way, a qualified embedded developer can be called.

2. develop good habits

There are two habits for developers: work habits and coding habits.

For those who are familiar with windows, we may not get used to the huge gap between Windows desktop and boring Linux terminal commands in the face of human-friendly and silly operations, it seems that it is not so friendly to communicate with it at first. However, gorgeous things often lack connotation, while an unpretentious appearance contains endless energy. After getting used to shell commands, you will find that it is so powerful and almost omnipotent. This is why so many embedded engineers love it. However, if you are still addicted to easy mouse operations and do not want to accept shell statements that look unfriendly, you will find that after a while, I don't seem to know much about Linux except a few mouse clicks ...... Therefore, in the development process of Embedded Linux, we must develop the habit of using terminal commands, free your mouse, and let the powerful shell play its functions.

If you do not have a good working habit, you will be at least tired and less efficient. However, if you do not establish a good coding style or even get stuck with bad coding habits, so for the vast majority of developers who are working together, it will be a crazy thing. I believe that every programmer developed by C is bored and lonely and pays attention to some of the works of the world garbled contest, I also believe that no project manager in a company will be lonely and ask his employees to follow the best of their talents. This is an era of team operations. superman is no longer a product of this period. Therefore, developing a good coding style is very important for developers! The specific encoding style will be explained in detail in the far-sighted Training Course of Huaqing. I will not go into details here.

3. Be diligent and focus on Practice

There are a lot of definitions and habits about programmers on the Internet. In some abnormal and exaggerated descriptive languages, programmer-this group of people who silently contribute their youthful talents to the IT industry shows their unknown side. I think this is a good sentence: "A programmer is not a real programmer if you haven't written 0.1 million lines of code ". Not a real programmer? What is that? Goods? Define it by yourself. Haha. This actually tells us that if you want to become a qualified programmer, you must think more about the Code. However, the question here is not for you to copy it, that way, even if you write more than 1 million lines of code, your level is still that. Be sure to design with your own ideas, describe and solve the problems in the macro world with the computer language you are familiar with, so that your coding capabilities can be improved. Of course, as an embedded software engineer, what you need is not just as simple as coding, for the construction of Embedded Development Environment on the host, familiar with the hardware architecture of the Development Board, the transplantation of bootloader, the transplantation of kernel and file system, and the compilation of driver programs, etc, you need to familiarize yourself with a series of development processes and gradually deepen your understanding. Therefore, the task on our shoulders will be more arduous. However, the broad prospects of the embedded industry have become a shining point. I believe that the industry from which you choose embedded software development is ready to accept the challenges. For your bright future, come on!

4. Develop the ability to solve problems independently

Students who continue their studies at the university may still enjoy the tireless teachings of their teachers, and from an early age, we will be instilled in an idea-if there is a problem, ask for a teacher. But when you step out of school and step into the society, you will find that the reality does not seem as beautiful as the ideal. We will encounter one or another problems in our work, especially our developers, which are even more problematic in the face of endless computer technologies. At this time, you will find that you are the only one who can patiently help you solve the problem. In the company, no matter how harmonious and friendly your work environment is, your colleagues are still in a more or less competitive relationship, and everyone has their own jobs busy, this means that it is impossible for others to patiently solve your problem. At this time, only you can rely on yourself. At this time, people with poor problem-solving capabilities may say that they should not call the ground for failure every day. Therefore, when you encounter problems during the learning process, you must first think about them and try to solve them by yourself. analyze the possible factors and try to solve them, this helps to train your problem analysis and problem solving skills.

Of course, during the far-sighted training in Huaqing, you will always be followed by tutors throughout your learning process, and there will never be any competition between teachers and students, you can explore the questions you want to ask as much as you want to solve. Here, I just advocate a habit of learning. After the problem is solved, you must take notes to record the problems in a timely manner, in case you encounter similar problems in the future, and read the records of past problems frequently to deepen your memory. I believe that you will be delighted to find that you have grown up unconsciously when you look at the history of past problems one day in the future.

I would like to express my gratitude to every elder generation devoted to embedded technology R & D, because your selfless contribution has given us a convenient way to learn and rich technical resources today. In the end, I wish everyone new to the embedded field can improve themselves in the future, and develop their own sky in the embedded field!