On Fri, 30 Aug 2002, Bob Ammerman wrote:

> I suggested Jave instead of Python, Tcl/Tk, or whatever other languages are
> out there for several reasons:
>
> 1: 'C++' like syntax. I assume GPSIM is currently written in 'C' or 'C++'
> and this would make the port easier.

Correct, gpsim is written almost entirely in C++ and has a little bit of
C. I doubt porting 70 thousand lines of C++ code to Java is easy, but I
do imagine it'd be easier than porting to Perl.

>
> 2: Wide support. JVMs are found almost everywhere.
>
> 3: Decent performance. With JIT compilationa and all the other tricks used
> by a good JVM you can get pretty good results. I could be wrong, but I don't
> think the other suggested languages will be nearly as fast. Finally, with
> computers just getting faster, the performance hit of using Java instead of
> C/C++ will not be as painful.

The tacit assumption in your last sentence is that the feature set in the
simulator will remain constant. Windows 3.11 would scream on a 2GHz
Athlon! The problem is that programmers are prolific. For example, gpsim
can now simulate a PIC faster than real time - and at the same time
support several plug in modules and continuously update the gui. My
personal objective has always been to retain performance. Eventually gpsim
may get ported into something like SID.

In my opinion, Java and other interpreted languages may have their place,
but not in gpsim. OTOH, they can serve as a useful glue.

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic:
[PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads