Peter Brink

Background

About Peter Brink

Computer software is probably not an accurate description of what I do, but it's the closest in the list. My specialty is two-fold, real-time embedded control systems and embedded software. For the most part those two coincide, but I made occasional excursions into GUI development. What I find is that the skills required to be a "good" embedded developer make you a "good" software engineer and, frankly, a "good" systems engineer. It's probably a truism that as software engineers gain in breadth of expertise that they become systems engineers, since these days the functionality of a systems is ultimately expressed by software. In Embedded Systems it is much more important to do the software architecture and design first before doing anything simply because the environment is so dissimilar to traditional computer software development. You cannot count on having anything OS related in your product; instead you either have to write it yourself, or you do without. Also, you are invariably much closer to the hardware, since, most often, you are creating a fixed function device with limited interaction with the outside world. If anything that has made me focus on requirements, system or software architecture, and design as the key contributions towards the making of a quality product. Finally, the level of optimization required for embedded is also considerably more important as most often you are doing things in software since the hardware incurs more expenses on a per unit basis that software doesn't. As such, you have to make small fast code that is relatively bug-free. See, it's easy;). In recent years, I have been working to establish a software engineering curriculum to try and create more software engineers who are good at the basics of software engineering instead of specialists at one specific discipline. I have also begun working with the on updates to the SWEBoK and SWECoM in order to ensure that the next generation of software engineers with have the necessary reference material to learn from. To reinforce these activities, I have also become a Software Engineering Program Evaluator for ABET to engage with the higher-education community. Specialties: Embedded Systems Development, Real-Time Control Systems, Software Optimization Expert, Systems Engineering, Safety Critical Software