[wrs]

If I read the article correctly, Nordic changed the rules on this function without saying anything. It used to work with a stack-allocated config and now it doesn’t. The only way for the caller to know about that in C is a comment.

[swatcoder]

That's possible, but unlikely given conventions in embedded development and how something like this interface would generally need to work.

More likely (but not necessarily), Nordic's early example was either bugged or conditionally valid (benefiting from other implicit details of their implementation) and then was revised either because the mistake was identified or something else about the example change.

That's all pretty common in this domain. Inadvertently stumbling because you uncritically followed some vendor example is also pretty common and completely understandable. Better tools, like using a language with richer semantics, are indeed something that can help with that.

[wrs]

I dunno, in my experience if you see something worded the way this was:

    int something_init(const something_init_params* params);

the convention is that the params are temporary -- really just a way of passing a bunch of parameters to the init function. It would be a surprise that the params are expected to be static. E.g., the whole STM32 HAL is done this way, and it would be a disaster if you thought the init structs all had to be static!

BTW, you can see the assumptions of the non-embedded programmers talking about "taking ownership" being the default interpretation of a signature like that...if you don't have a heap, what does that even mean?

In any case, C is a mess, embedded is a mess, no argument there!

[cozzyd]

Making a copy is much less common in embedded if it's a large data structure.

[exmadscientist]

Not to mention that one of the things experienced people learn is that vendor code is hot flaming garbage and must never be trusted. Writing a Rust implementation based on vendor code is like building a skyscraper on a landfill. Don't do that. If you have to do that, tread bloody carefully!

I am more on the hardware side these days, but Nordic's hardware docs are pretty crap. As in, they're pretty, and they're crap. (The prettiness lulls people, especially managers, into a false sense of confidence. Don't fall for the trap!) There are obvious poor choices in there, and if you call FAEs out on them, they say to just follow the docs. Experienced engineers should not follow the docs.

I can't see their software side being any better.