printf("Hello World!!! \n");

I have been putting off launching my corporate blog for what seems
like months. So today, it is with great excitement I say "hello" to the
extended Wind River community! The issue of trying to chose what to
write about in my first post has been a bigger challenge than I
expected. I chose the "printf" title for two reasons:

  • it seemed like a cute and natural way to test if my blog account was set-up correctly;
  • the continued popularity of printf statements for debugging
    embedded systems, and the motivations behing this popularity, is a
    topic worth touching on.

Using printf statements to debug software has been around
forever and will probably never disappear completely. A quick google
survey uncovered the colourful quote from ariels that says "I'll give up printf() when you pry my cold dead fingers from it".
Ariels posting also highlights some of the challenges leading embedded
software developers to resort to using printf for debugging.

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