low-level programming geekiness

[cjsmith]

I don't talk about work details much, 'cause either they're so minor they're meaningless, or they're something my company wants to talk about before I talk about it. But every so often there's a tidbit I can share for my geeky friends.

You know you're a real Embedded Systems Programmer when...

...you find and fix a bug that involves changing this code

var--;

to this:

disable_interrupts();
var--;
reenable_interrupts();

Extra bonus geek points if it doesn't happen reliably, doesn't happen in the debugger, and/or takes a long time to reproduce. More extra bonus geek points for not having been the one to put that bug in there in the first place.

That was late last week, and I was pretty proud of it, actually.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

It was indeed annoying. Wasn't the debugger's fault, either, really -- it simply didn't have, was never designed to have, the capability to do what I needed.

I haven't been in kernel land long enough that a bug like this is a no-brainer for me. I know people who have (okay, not many of 'em), or at least who are far quicker with such things. If I'm going to stay in kernel land, I want to get that good.