Embedded Artistry

20 August 2026 by Phillip Johnston I have been thinking about this quote from Patterns in the Machine: Software is complex, challenging, and time consuming and requires skilled professionals—no matter how much management, marketing people, and customers w…

24 July 2026 by Phillip Johnston I have always liked to have a make help target for my projects, which provided a target/command list and description.

21 July 2026 by Phillip Johnston One of the more maddening parts about the widespread adoption of AI tools, for me, is the inescapability of AI writing.

14 July 2026 by Phillip Johnston I have a problem with the “we’re safe due to Jevons paradox, it’ll increase demand for software” argument that I’m increasingly seeing.

15 April 2026 by Phillip Johnston This article describes a shift in my development habits.

31 March 2026 by Phillip Johnston I never end a workday feeling satisfied.

20 March 2026 by Phillip Johnston Elecia White posed a question that I enjoyed thinking through, and I wanted to share my answer here. ““ Question If you were building a 10-book library for your company/team/group of <20 engineers (hardware and software p…

9 March 2026 by Phillip Johnston Today, I needed to flash a Yocto image from my Macbook.

20 February 2026 by Phillip Johnston An insidious C++ error related to my use of auto ended up driving me nuts for hours this week.

10 February 2026 by Phillip Johnston • Last updated 20 February 2026 Perfectionism is my greatest obstacle as a creator.

5 February 2026 by Phillip Johnston We all know it: working with submodules is a frustrating experience.

29 January 2026 by Phillip Johnston Burnout has kept me away from several different projects for years, as my file timestamps frequently remind me.

28 January 2026 by Phillip Johnston Sometimes this comes as a question, other times it’s just the default way that people approach consulting or contracting work.

26 January 2026 by Phillip Johnston Burnout has kept me away from several different projects for years.

5 December 2025 by Phillip Johnston Starting again after burnout is tricky business.

3 November 2025 by Phillip Johnston I have been dealing with burnout for several years now.

13 October 2025 by Phillip Johnston While reading Lorin Hochstein’s post Caveat promptor, I was struck with realization.

20 February 2025 by Phillip Johnston Several of our courses reference .zip archives stored on the website.

25 November 2024 by Phillip Johnston I’m part of a “Papers in Systems” reading club, which meets monthly to discuss a chosen paper.

4 November 2024 by Phillip Johnston Today we have a guest post from Dave Goldberg.

31 July 2024 by Phillip Johnston During 2022-2023, Embedded Artistry and Memfault teamed up to run a series of embedded-focused discussion panels.

15 January 2024 by Kayode Alade Today we have a guest post from Kayode Alade.

5 January 2024 by Phillip Johnston • Last updated 1 February 2024 I ran into a situation recently where I wanted to perform a git cherry-pick operation, but I only wanted to pull specific files from the commit.

1 January 2024 by Phillip Johnston The end of one year (or the beginning of the next) is always a great time to check in.

30 November 2023 by Phillip Johnston • Last updated 16 February 2024 Embedded Artistry and Memfault are joining forces to host a quarterly embedded discussion panel that is focused on the technical aspects of building embedded systems at scale.

8 November 2023 by Phillip Johnston This post is mostly a note-to-self, because I’ve solved this before but have no notes on it.

27 October 2023 by Phillip Johnston The article that has generated the most angry and aggressive comments over the years, usually via email but also occasionally as comments on places like Hacker News, is -Werror is Not Your Friend.

20 September 2023 by Phillip Johnston • Last updated 28 September 2023 Your toolchain is a useful place to start when incorporating security into your development process.

28 August 2023 by Phillip Johnston • Last updated 21 December 2023 Embedded Artistry and Memfault are joining forces to host a quarterly embedded discussion panel that is focused on the technical aspects of building embedded systems at scale.

12 June 2023 by Phillip Johnston Here’s a question I answered via email from the From Concept to Launch: What It Takes to Build and Ship a New Device panel discussion.