Re: STM32F4 Discovery, communication and libraries

[Mike Silva <mjsilva697@gmail.com>]

Roy,

The problem with reuse is that it is hardly ever as clean and simple as one would hope.  In my experience, by the time you find some code, determine if it meets your needs, identify the areas that will need to be changed, and figure out how to bind to it if in C, it would have been quicker to write the code from scratch (perhaps using the code you found as a general guide).  I don't claim that's a universal, just my experience.

For example, on the MODBUS drivers, I've used such code in the past, and even though our company paid for custom drivers, we spent a lot of time fixing and adjusting them.  I doubt we gained anything over writing from scratch (using whatever code we could have found as a guide).

Speaking of reuse, since you're just discovering Ada, you should read about the Ariane 5 reuse fiasco (which some people foolishly tried to blame on the use of Ada, but which is really about the perils of reuse of perfectly good code).