From the point of view of simple economics it is often worth it to save the extra component and introduce an RTOS and a good debugger in such a design.
You're right. We're doomed anyway. So let's all micro-manage and bit-fiddle our way into bankruptcy.
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Some see software like a compiler as analogous to a tool like a screwdriver. If one person isn't using it another can and perhaps at a different location. It's not particularly tied to a person or a location. Even with expensive tools like high speed oscilloscopes this follows, it's laughable to think you would require permission from the manufacturer for a second person to use the tool at another location.
Others see software like a compiler as more similar to a temporary tatoo. One person, one location and you have to keep refreshing it if you want to continue using it.
This is seriously wrong especially where no RTOS was in use before - it is just asking for a whole bunch of quite unnecessary headaches, heartaches, late nights and seriously dodgy products.
Indeed, with networking on Windose machines finally catching up with what Unix has had for decades, engineers can develop code on their own machine using whatever editor they like then compile it using the SINGLE compiler on a shared machine. Old hat old boy.
This does raise an interesting point, wrt compilers. ( more so than Debug or Simulators )
The compile times for uC these days are extremely fast, so only a tiny fraction of any engineers time is spent actually compiling, and they could certainly wait for another batch-compile to complete anyway.
The support cost for a compiler is different, it does increase with the number of users, and number of design variant instances.
So, that looks like a model is needed that reflects the support cost ?
( see also Walter's comment elsewhere in this thread, about emulator-tagged compiler sales, and their lower support costs )
and here in today's news, is an even more topical example :
Zilog have just made ZDS II free-download:
formatting link
ZDS II includes a Microsoft Windows-based project environment, editor, project manager, C compiler, assembler, linker, librarian, simulator and debugger.
[not stated, but presumably this includes all their cores, & the new ZNEO ?]
That depends, if one person needs multiple screwdirvers at once then you need more than one. If it's more than one person other possibilities open up. For a screwdriver that's only a few dollars it makes sense to have multiples around, for a multi-million dollar instrument it makes sense to have people share. A lot of tools lie somewhere in between obviously. Also the border between sharing a single tool and having individual tools varies tremendously from place to place and depends on factors other than economics (even if they shouldn't play a large role).
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