Hi,

My question certainly stems from the imposter syndrome that I am living right now for no good reason, but when looking to resolve some issues for embedded C problems, I come across a lot of post from people that have a deep understanding of the language and how a mcu works at machine code level.

When I read these posts, I do understand what the author is saying, but it really makes me feel like I should know more about what’s happening under the hood.

So my question is this : how do you rate yourself in your most used language? Do you understand the subtilities and the nuance of your language?

I know this doesn’t necessarily makes me a bad firmware dev, but damn does it makes me feel like it when I read these posts.

I get that this is a subjective question without any good responses, but I’d be interested in hearing about different experiences in the hope of reducing my imposter syndrome.

Thanks

  • Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de
    9·
    2 months ago

    Better than many, mediocre.

    With my coworkers I’ve got a strange ability to pick up any language that tastes like c, and get stuff done. I’m sure I’ve confused our c# guys when I make a change to their code and ask for a code review, because I’ll chase down quality of life improvements for myself. (Generally, I will make the change and ask if I have any unintended side effects, because in an MCU, I know what all my side effects are, multi threaded application?, not at all)

    Edit: coming from a firmware view, I’ve made enough mistakes to realize when order of operations will stab me, when a branch is bad because that pipeline hit will hurt, and I still get & vs && wrong more often than I would like to admit.

    • CroquetteOP
      2·
      2 months ago

      I think I’ll never not make & &&, | || or = == operators mistakes. It’s so easy to go over it fast and not notice the mistakes.

      I like developing MCU firmwares because there is limited amout of resources and you usually have direct control of what is running when.

      I feel the better than many, but mediocre in my soul. I mean, I get paid to code, so I certainly have a good enough knowledge to do so. But I have the tendancy to undersell myself.