Re: Package with initialization only

[Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com>]

David Kristola wrote:
> 
> Maybe it is my real-time embedded systems background,
> but i much prefer explicit initialization over
> elaboration.  The example that immediately comes to
> mind is a case where the elaboration code wrote over
> a memory mapped bus and sometimes caused contention
> interrupts.  There was a handler to deal with the
> situation, but it was not installed yet.
> Installation of interrupt handlers was the first
> thing the main program did after elaboration.
> 
In the embedded world, elaboration can sometimes cause serious troubles.
For example, in an application where the program begins execution in
EEPROM and has to copy itself to RAM before it can start writing to
memory, elaboration can be a problem. I've even had trouble with
compilers that wanted to dynamically initialize static constants at
elaboration (I guess to simplify the case where a constant might have a
dynamically determined value) which is really a bad idea if you want to
locate the constants in EEPROM. 

Which is, of course, not to say that elaboration in embedded computers
is *always* a bad thing. Its only once in a while that it gets
difficult. ;-)

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
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