Embedded C Programming

Discussions center on the dominance and necessity of C in embedded systems programming, including its entrenchment due to vendor libraries, tools, and industry practices, alongside mentions of alternatives like Rust or MicroPython.

📉 Falling 0.4x Hardware
4,118
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#510
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
3
2008
11
2009
35
2010
68
2011
58
2012
81
2013
146
2014
151
2015
172
2016
273
2017
274
2018
356
2019
313
2020
368
2021
384
2022
415
2023
402
2024
301
2025
270
2026
41

Keywords

CS AR EE SoCs CPU HN Embedded.fm ARM BE MicroPython embedded embedded systems software systems programming arm ee code targets language

Sample Comments

reedx8 Sep 26, 2018 View on HN

Why didn't programming for embedded systems work for you?

jbay808 Apr 29, 2021 View on HN

Embedded systems programmers don't always have such luxury!

satvikpendem Dec 8, 2022 View on HN

Are there not a lot of embedded systems that only have a C compiler?

ycombinatrix Jul 13, 2025 View on HN

"Serious embedded devs" are probably using a compiled language.

Touche Dec 26, 2019 View on HN

C is basically your only option for embedded systems.

cpach Sep 19, 2020 View on HN

I guess in embedded, C is still strong?

SV_BubbleTime Jun 16, 2022 View on HN

I program for embedded… still do that.

luma May 18, 2021 View on HN

Not really, C is pretty deeply entrenched in the embedded world. Unless you want to bitbang something like a USB host, you’ll be relying on vender libraries, and those libraries are overwhelmingly developed in C. Same is true for pretty much the entire build chain, debug tools, etc.

adaszko Nov 22, 2018 View on HN

Does this matter anywhere outside of embedded software nowadays?

hackcasual Jun 21, 2019 View on HN

It's for an embedded (SoC) device, so likely they didn't want the overhead of a more managed language.