| Without Successor | With Full Successor | |------------------|----------------------| | System becomes unchangeable (frozen) | System can evolve | | High bus factor risk | Risk mitigated | | Slow incident resolution (days to find root cause) | Rapid debugging | | Impossible to audit or certify | Full auditability restored | | Recruiting impossible (no one wants to touch it) | System becomes attractive to modern devs after refactoring |
You will not take a test. Instead, you will submit a GitHub repository of a project you built alone, from scratch, that solves a non-trivial problem.
| Feature | Verdict | |--------|---------| | Enclosure | CNC aluminum or rugged plastic (varies by version). Feels solid, not cheap. | | Connectors | USB-C (data/power), 40-pin ZIF socket, pin headers for probes. | | Voltage support | 1.8V, 2.5V, 3.3V, 5V (selectable or auto-sensing). | | Protection | Reverse polarity, overcurrent, ESD protection – better than 95% of Chinese clones. | vertyanov+successor+programmer+full
Pro: True 1.8V support without external adapters.
Con: No built-in battery; relies on USB power (sometimes insufficient for large eMMC writes – use powered USB hub).
Supports SPI, I²C, MicroWire, SWIM, JTAG (limited), eMMC, and NAND via different adapters. | Without Successor | With Full Successor |
Limitation: No native PCIe or NVMe flash support (requires external bridge).
This is the most polarizing aspect. The software is powerful but unintuitive. Limitation: No native PCIe or NVMe flash support
Software name: Vertyanov “Programmer App” (varies by version – check your download link).
Pros:
Cons:
Recommendation: If you hate GUI, you’ll love the CLI. If you need a polished “click and flash” tool, look elsewhere.