Re: Is Linux right for Embedded?

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

For some parts of the system, Java is being employed. It is being considered
for other aspects of the system, but I really can't say too much about it
right now. While Java cuts down on some of the more eggregious sins of
C/C++, it isn't nearly what I would consider "safety critical". If my little
set-top box crashes the software, it just holds onto the current channel and
reboots itself. Worst case: someone misses a few minutes of "The Simpsons"
while the reboot happens. Not "A Good Thing", but hardly the same as a
billion dollar rocket crashing in the ocean. The semantics of Java and the
JVM are not exactly designed with high error prevention in mind. For some
things, that's O.K. but I'd rather fly in something with more safety.

Where I think Java has an edge on productivity (and possibly reliability) is
the availability of large class libraries to do lots of the graphics work.
Even if it isn't as good as Ada in terms of preventing errors, it does buy
you a lot of time to market by leveraging someone else's code.

Note: AFAIK, the libraries are *not* part of whatever might be considered
"Standard Java", per se. They come along for the ride mostly because Java
comes from Sun with the libraries & there aren't a whole lot of competing
Java implementations. Ada lacks a "standard" collection of class libraries
mostly because Ada is a "standard" that isn't owned by one source and it
aims at a variety of problem domains wherein the class libraries might be
irrelevant or impossible. There are a variety of libraries available though,
so it isn't like you can't get there - just not a single standard library.

It sure would be nice for Ada to have a de-facto "standard" GUI library - a
couple seem to be emerging as possible contenders. I think if Ada had all of
this bundled together in a development kit, it would offer more than what
developers get with Java. Obviously, something like GtkAda does a lot to
bring about this sort of reality.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"mike@nospam" <mike_member@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:9pagrn01n6v@drn.newsguy.com...
>
> Have you considered Java for the tv setbox project? at least Java is
closer
> to Ada in terms of saftey and quality, but it sort of looks like C, so
others
> might not fight it as hard as Ada.
>