[freedomben]

Generally speaking, I think both are true. Most people seem to have an affinity for either hardware or software, but rarely for both. Those who do are extremely unique. I don't mean that as an insult to anyone, just as an observatin having worked in both (and personally am much better at software than hardware, even though I enjoy both).

[randusername]

And then there is IC versus leadership. They're opposites. Lead times and supply chains are a headache in hardware, but tangible deadlines are great for keeping the project grounded. In software you have to invent your own discipline to keep the team on pace and bend over backwards to explain to physical-minded stakeholders why you can't build something with no lead times overnight.

[friendzis]

Hardware and software have VERY different deployment cost functions and lifecycles. Having "affinity" for one requires a mindset not really suitable for the other and being able to juggle mindsets, especially short vs long term focus is rare in itself.

[alexdbird]

My experience studying 'Computing and Electronics' - a combined degree - was that we could get practically any extensions or leniency we wanted by blaming the other specialism. To each the other was mistrusted and magic.

[jamesfinlayson]

I agree - at university there were software people and hardware people and a small number who studied mechatronics (hardware and software). But even the mechatronic people were really hardware people who just tolerated software.

[cogman10]

I find both interesting but have been working in software for over a decade now.

Honestly, the thing that pushed me into software dev was the fact that hardware tools were absolutely garbage. Verilog felt like a joke of a language designed to torment rather than help the user.

[buildbot]

Verilog is not the best and that’s not even the worst part - tools like ISE/Vivado and Quartus are even worse!

It’s really amazing that at least there are some fully open flows for FPGAs these days, unfortunately they don’t support system Verilog. (I think this is still the case?)

[jamesfinlayson]

Yeah at university we had to do some hardware stuff in our software course. I know there were better debug tools available as some students purchased them but playing with microprocessors was no fun.