[PLUG-Devel] RAD for hardware control? Java? Something?

[Jon M. Hanson]

Alan Dayley wrote:
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> I'm looking for a good, non-MS, non-BigEmbeddedProrpietaryHighCostVendor
> rapid development tool set.
>
> I am not a Java developer, just a dabbler and very little of even that.
>  However, Java has much going for it as a rapid application development
> (RAD) language.
>
> - - Soon to be (already?) released as GPL  (Way cool!)
> - - IDE's with pretty GUI development tools
> - - Large knowledge base
> - - Well known to the "suits"
> - - Lots of tools
>
> However, where I work, we need RAD for hardware.  We need to write
> programs that issue specific SCSI or IDE or serial commands.  That poke
> register values and manipulate controllers.
>
> Can Java do these things?  Can it be extended, without too much
> additional work, to do these types of low-level hardware operations?
>
> What about other languages like Python or TCL?
>
> Linux is "taking off" in the embedded world but the hardware
> manipulation level is still dominated by closed source tools.  I want
> FS/OSS tools and a community to go with it.
>
> Alan
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>   
    The problem is that Java isn't a "bare metal" language. Java runs in 
a sandboxed virtual machine which translates the Java bytecode into the 
native machine language on the fly. Because of Java's ability to do 
cross-platform without any code modification, it would not be possible 
for it to peek and poke at hardware registers like you want it to 
because that would violate the cross-platform ability (not all platforms 
have those specific registers at the same location) and it is a security 
risk as well.

-- 
Jon M. Hanson (N7ZVJ)
Homepage:  http://the-hansons-az.net
Weblog:    http://the-hansons-az.net/wordpress
Jabber IM: jon at the-hansons-az.net