Engineering Elegance

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1160562

Adding/porting a backend/architecture to LLVM

After finally managing to port an architecture i thought i’d share the steps as there isnt a clear or simple guide on adding your own backend to LLVM. It should be noted that at this time of writing the LLVM documentation at llvm.org is outdated (also mentioned on their website). Assuming you have your architecture code ready there are a few files needed for LLVM to detect, compile and use your backend. It is also recommended to look at other Read more…

By systemerrormessage, ago

LLVM

Finally managed to compile LLVM and clang for microblaze. I find using configure –target= or -target doesnt work while using –enable-targets=”mblaze” worked. I found the documentation to be very poor on this and does not mention anything about the other options available in configure such as using –enable-targets.  I also have found that many others have had the same problem and they never found the solution to it while all the solutions given didnt work. Clang seems to compile fine Read more…

By systemerrormessage, ago
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1160562

First Day

First day at aeste, tried to set up workplace but had to leave the PC to download the eclipse addon overnight. Will compile the tools and check eclipse tomorrow.

By systemerrormessage, ago

Modular Server Farm

This is part of our series of ideation entries. What if one could have a modular server farm – think of a rack of blades, which you can add computing resources to in a modular manner. For one, it would definitely reduce power consumption if the computing resources could be added and removed as needed. Now, think of what this sort of computing flexibility could do for applications. The type of computing power can be distributed between integer, floating-point, data Read more…

By Shawn, ago

Interview Heuristics

Seems that we’re not the only one stuck in this conundrum. Although mentioning only web-developers, the things mentioned in this blog entry are applicable just as well to our own problems in hiring at AESTE. Paraphrasing the entry: Hiring engineers is like simultaneously enduring a flood and a drought. You are overwhelmed with resumes yet struggle mightily to find folks worthy of your team. We seriously consider hiring about 10% of the folks who apply. Those 10% come back for Read more…

By Shawn, ago

Glusterfs 3.2 Updates

At our office, we’ve been using Glusterfs in an unconventional way. Instead of merely using it in a distributed or replicated cluster, we’re using it as central storage for our user home directories. As part of our office-wide upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04LTS, we have had to upgrade our Glusterfs from 3.0 to 3.2 and it was not immediately evident how we could accomplish the same setup as we had previously. Now, it’s been sorted out and we’d like to share our Read more…

By Shawn, ago

Startup vs Big Company

Just read an insightful piece about the differences between working at a start-up vs a big company. It boils down to 10 points: Responsibility, accountability, impact Everyone is expected to take ownership of their own work here. Collective responsibility doesn’t fly as it encourages a no-blame, no-responsibility culture. Risk There is no guarantee that we’ll be around a year from now. Our only guarantee is that we will try to be around for that, and much longer. Opportunities for generalists Read more…

By Shawn, ago

Exciting New Product

We’re currently working on a new product, estimated for a soft-launch in Q3 of 2012. The idea of the product itself has gotten me rather excited as it has a clear and present advantage. We will blog more about it as things develop. But for the moment, let’s just say that it will be a combination of hardware, software and services. Keep a lookout!

By Shawn, ago

Gitosis and Github

We have our own gitosis server running in our office server. We’ve typically used this to work on private projects. The problem with this setup is that there was not direct link between the office gitosis server with our repositories on github. This problem has now been solved and we’re currently using our office gitosis server as a middle-layer repository. The gitosis server acts also as a downstream repository for our github repositories. This can be easily done by logging Read more…

By Shawn, ago

Git SVN Workflow

For some of our projects, FreeRTOS specifically, we need to track a SVN upstream repository that is hosted on Source Forge. As we’re only interested in pulling upstream changes and not pushing anything upstream, this simplifies our workflow a bit. The first thing that is needed is to configure the upstream SVN repository. In our case, we already have an existing git repository. Therefore, instead of cloning the actual SVN tree, we’ll only pull in the necessary changes. $ cd Read more…

By Shawn, ago