Real-Time Debuggers are Most Important Tool but Need Most Improvement

SANTA CRUZ, CA, August 18, 2003 - A new survey of embedded developers from Evans Data Corp. found that real-time debuggers are the most important tool in the developer's tool kit. But the survey also found that real-time debuggers are less than satisfactory with more than 15% of developers reporting that they need improvement.

Forty percent of respondents selected real-time debuggers as "Critical to development". Second most important tool for embedded development were libraries at 27%. When ranked against the other tools in the survey, real-time debuggers had a relative ranking of 77 and libraries were second at 50.

"Relative rankings are used to compare a set of tools or technologies and measure the disparity among the set. They are calculated by assigning a weight to each response, the more positive the response the greater the weight it carries, and aggregating those weighted responses to assign a relative value and rank to each member in the set," said Brian Cooper, research director for Evans Data.

When developers were asked about their satisfaction with the various tools available for embedded development, real-time debuggers scored a less than impressive -19.3. Developers are least satisfied with memory analysis tools and performance analysis/profiling tools.

Other findings from the August survey of nearly 400 embedded systems developers:

• According to the survey, 97% of embedded developers split their time between hardware and software development, a sign of the ever growing trend toward design convergence.
• Usage of the Eclipse IDE has shown significant growth in the last year from 4% to 10% in the recent survey. All of the IDE's in the survey have gained ground on Microsoft's dominant Visual Developer Studio in the last six months.
• Almost 60% of companies will evaluate the intellectual property risks of Linux in response to the SCO lawsuit. However, for 34% of respondents that task fell to the developers and engineering teams.

Evans Data Corporation provides regularly updated IT industry market intelligence based on in-depth surveys of the global developer population. Evans' syndicated research includes surveys focused on developers in a wide variety of subjects.

Copyright 2007 Evans Data Corporation. All other company names, products and services mentioned in this document are the trademarks and property of their respective owners.

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