What does the term "Real-Time Software Development refer to?

Question

I saw a job description with the term Real-Time Software Development:

Software Engineers at Boeing develop solutions that provide world class performance and capability to customers around the world. Boeing Defense, Space and Security in St. Louis is looking for software engineers to join the growing and talented teams developing modeling and simulation software for a variety of applications, including flight control and aerodynamic performance, weapon and sensor systems, simulation tools and more. The software is integrated with live assets to enable a next-generation virtual battle environment to explore new system concepts and optimal engineering solutions.

Our software engineers are responsible for full life-cycle software development which means you will have a hand in defining the requirements; designing, implementing and testing the software. You will work with a team in a casual but professional environment where there is long-term potential for career growth into management or technical leadership positions.
    **Languages & Databases**

    Real-time SW Development Tool

    Real-time Target Environment

    Job:*Software Engineer

I can't figure out what that means in this context, what does Real Time Software development mean?

This question is under discussion on Meta here: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/299543/should-this-question-be-closed Could you post a link to the job posting that used this term? — BradleyDotNET, Jul 17 '15 at 16:53
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.497.1161&rep=rep1&type=pdf pag. 14. — Braiam, Jul 17 '15 at 18:03
Possibly related: [What languages are used for real time systems programming?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/697916/what-languages-are-used-for-real-time-systems-programming). *(That is, once you establish the language, then the question becomes "What tools are available to program in that language?".)* — DavidRR, Jul 17 '15 at 20:37
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5281848/what-are-the-five-most-commonly-used-real-time-operating-systems — Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com, Jul 19 '15 at 19:42

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 19 '15 at 20:26

The links in comments give some useful information. The real problem with Real Time is that there are far less usages than ordinary scientific or data processing applications and so less specialists around.

I used a Real Time development environment many years ago, a a friend of mine used another one more recently. The generic characteristics were :

the development system is an IDE more or less like any other IDE
you have the ability to get the precise time that will last any routine, because if you use a RT system, it is because you need deterministic processing times
you have an emulator that allows you to run the program or more exactly simulate it running on the real system with different inputs (including hardware inputs) and control both the outputs and the times
you generally mix high level programming (C or others) for non critical parts and low level assembly routines in time critical parts.

The remaining really depended on the simulated system.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 18 '15 at 18:07

Real time in this context means software that always run in the same time. Normal server and desktop OSes such as Mac, Linux, and Windows have multitasking without exact scheduling, making it impossible to say exactly how long time it will take for a piece of code to run. In a real time OS, the time it will take a piece of code is always the same.

This is used in space craft, aircraft and similar areas.

Not to be confused with real time processing speed, eg. encoding video in real time means to encode it as fast as the frames are coming.

What does the term "Real-Time Software Development refer to?

2 Answers2