Automating Metrics in Modern Embedded Development

Complex modern embedded systems can be impossible to debug without serious metrics on performance, resource use, and error conditions. Collecting those metrics manually is laborious and error-prone. Jacob explores the metrics that matter and shows how collecting and delivering them can-and should-be automated.

- By Jacob Beningo

Modern embedded systems are notoriously complex: hundreds of small modules, countless configuration options, and hardware constraints that affect every decision. Even worse, companies demand more features within tight deadlines, making handling a complex system a stressful task.

As we keep adding features, we lose confidence in whether our system is stable or functionally correct. The sheer complexity makes us doubt the quality of the work we deliver. We often ask ourselves: Will our changes crash the system in the next deployment? We essentially work under a shadow of fear.

And yet many embedded teams still work without real visibility into their code's health. They rely on intuition, firefighting, and gut feel to decide when to refactor or where quality might be slipping.

The problem is, without data, these decisions are often wrong, and the cost shows up as defects, delays, and brittle architectures.

That's why the best embedded teams don't just write software. They measure it. Metrics turn vague hunches into concrete trends, letting you spot risk before it snowballs and steer your development toward maintainable, high-quality code.

In this post, we'll explore why metrics matter, the key ones every team should track, and how to automate them directly into your build system—so measuring quality becomes as routine as compiling code.

WHY METRICS MATTER IN EMBEDDED DEVELOPMENT

In 2007, two elderly ladies in Oklahoma were driving somewhere in their Toyota Camry. Their trip ended tragically since one of them was killed and the other seriously injured in a crash.

The investigation revealed that a defect in the vehicle's electronic throttle control system caused it to accelerate uncontrollably. The car's code also revealed a grim reality: the firmware was extremely complex—often described as “spaghetti code”—and contained:

• 11,000 global variables

• 80,000 coding standard violations