Re: [avrdude-dev] How good is AVRDude ?

[Russell Shaw]

Janaka Subhawickrama wrote:
> Sorry this is not a technical question as such !
>
> My Background :
> I am an Embedded Software Engineer with 8 Years embedded experience in a verity 
> of chips, living in Australia.
>
> Background to the question:
> I was having a discussion with a Embedded Software Engineer with about 40 Years experience (Yeh that's right, has been with it since the valve days) when he said the following. "AVRDude [and open source embedded tools] is only good for enthusiastic amateurs.  Professionals don't use it for work!".  
>
> Well I think AVRDude and open source embedded tools are a great tool, although 
> I haven't use it for work - yet!.
> His reasons are as follows
> - There is no formal testing done on AVRDude
> - No professionals use it for work purposes
> - Professional developers don't develop it
> - There is no software architects overseeing the architecture of AVRDude
> - There is ad-hoc planning
>
> Hence unreliable.
>
> Answers looking for :
> Well what I am looking for is some facts to knock those points down.
> Please help!
>
> Cheers
>   Janaka

Well, these so-called "professionals" are the type that only do electronics 9-5
and are pretty clueless when presented with tools that don't come in a pretty
"made for winXP" box.