Timing is Everything – Embedded Systems Demand Early Teaching of Structured Time-Oriented Programming

Computing was originally dominated by desktop and hence dataoriented systems. However, embedded and hence time-oriented systems, which must measure input events or generate output events of specified time durations, or must execute at regular time intervals, are increasingly commonplace. Blinking a light on and off for 1 second represents a “Hello World” example of a time-oriented system. Time-oriented programming differs significantly from the more common data-oriented programming, and developing correct maintainable time-oriented programs is challenging. The current situation of embedded courses being senior-level courses hampers effective teaching of time-oriented programming, as early-learned programming habits can be hard to break. Early freshmen or sophomore-level introduction of time-oriented programming, involving the right balance between abstractions and resource awareness, may provide a better foundation. A clean microcontroller with a timer, coupled with the synchronous state machine computation model, can provide such a balance.