| title | author |
|---|---|
What is XD-embedded |
Esben Haabendal |
XD-embedded is a project, with the goal of developing tools for building and maintaining embedded Linux systems and products.
The overall idea is to always keep the developers needs in focus. Tools and the procedures needed to use these tools should be designed and implemented with a strong focus on keeping the developers happy. When developers are strugling with tools, they get unhappy (and inefficient).
XD-embedded tools therefore must be easy to use, intuitive (obey principle of least suprise), and efficient.
The software components that are currently being developed under the XD-embedded umbrella is:
- XD-tool, the front-end tool for working with XD-embedded manifests.
- XD-build, a build and integration system for building embedded system firmware and SDK images.
- XD-req, a requirement management system.
Other possible additions, although no actual work is planned for them are:
- XD-test, a test system for automatic execution of on-target tests.
In this phase of the project, the focus is to serve the need of XD-embedded developers, ie. those working on developing the XD-embedded software components. This includes both developers wanting to help develop the XD-build system, and those wanting to help develop recipes for XD-build.
As a consequence, we must focus on:
- Developer documentation, both source-code and design documentation
- Code quality
- Developer friendly features, fx. debug features
Later on, focus will be extended to developers wanting to help write and maintain XD-build recipes, and finally also those doing system and product development with XD-build.
The name XD-embedded were chosen because:
- 'X' for cross, 'D' for docker, main concepts for the build system
- although usable for other purposes, the main goal use-case is embedded Linux system development
- you will have so much fun working with XD-embedded
- a lot of other possible names were already spoken for