It's not all the same kind of development

I have had the opportunity to work on many different kinds of projects, and you cannot treat software development for embedded hardware the same as web server application development, not by any long shot.

Embedded software, operating systems, low level applications are 70-80% preparation in design, memory layout, memory management, documentation and planning. In contrast to high-level languages used on webservers, etc. The more low-level and smaller you go, the better you need to plan the software, since the tools available (or rework) to modify changes is going to be more difficult. And the lower you go in the system, the more other systems built on top are likely to be severely affected.

So, 70-80% planning in embedded systems with not a lot of coding (just make sure you *do* it right). This is against 20-40% of planning for application software, but requiring a lot of coding effort. The high-level languages have plenty of libraries available and the development tools help significantly with refactoring nowadays. Planning beforehand for the software is actually a risk factor, due to changing requirements from the clients and changing insights along the development process, or a change in the way how things could/should be done.

Therefore, one could "perceive" embedded software development as a "slow" process, but this is not truly the case. A design is in itself a produce of intellect, but it does not immediately convert itself to a materialized ability to the end user. Nobody however can deny that a good design produces immense benefits in the long run for a certain operating system or function.

The final argument has to do with update cycles. Embedded software *has* to be correct. Webserver or PC software can be updated (should not, unless for new features), but we have sort of generally started to accept that for PC software you produce a version that you think works and then continuously update the software after it is released. Everybody does it, so why not you? With embedded, this is simply impossible, since the user does not generally have the ability or skills to do this. And in general we tend to think of a product as "bad" if they have to return it to the shop for 'an upgrade'...