Re: [Gumstix-users] Perl Problems

[Bruce D. L. <lig...@li...>]

Craig Hughes wrote:
> On Jul 6, 2007, at 2:58 PM, Bruce D. Lightner wrote:
>
>   
>> 16 Mbyte DRAM chip used by a
>> *single copy* of each Perl version is ~8% vs. ~2%!
>>     
>
> Gumstix have 64 or 128MB of SDRAM, not 16MB.  1.4MB vms are a  
> breeze.  Welcome to the new world of not-having-to-worry-so-much  
> embedded.
>   

Dave,

You are of course correct!  I was thinking about the flash chip, which 
*is* 16 Mbytes.  Nevertheless, the "gumstix" line is at the 
"who-cares-how-much-the hardware-costs" end in the embedded solutions 
world, so the "zero sum game" I mentioned in my last email starts with a 
pretty large "sum"! :-)

As for your "welcome", it makes me take pause.  Hello "bloat-ware", 
likely written in Java...and .NET.  I can't wait for Eclipse on a 
"gumstix"! :-)

But, seriously, I do find it interesting (and exciting) that solutions 
like Perl suddenly have entered the embedded design equation, something 
that was completely out of the realm of possibility just a few short 
years ago.

Where all this will lead makes me worry at bit.  Tiny, embedded hardware 
used to be very simple (and reliable) because it was so resource 
limited.  That is no longer the case...as you no doubt are well aware.  
Now, most of our new-and-improved "embedded solutions" are so complex 
and therefore error-prone that they *require* field upgrades.  Our early 
customers get to be our unwilling "beta-testers"...a product engineering 
technique perfected by "bloat-ware" companies like Microsoft!  (I don't 
think I should have to "upgrade" the firmware in my bedside alarm clock!)

Plus, this stuff used to be "hard", which is why only "smart people" 
attempted it, and therefore the quality of embedded products was 
generally high.  Now, with the needed resources to run embedded Linux, 
it seems like "everyone and his/her brother/sister" has joined 
in...again something that *you* must be painfully aware of!  It seems to 
me that embedded Linux is the MS Visual C of the hardware world, Visual 
C having been designed by MS to bring "Windows programming" to the 
masses, which (arguably) did not achieve its goal.  It will be 
interesting to look back on all of this in a few years!
//
Best regards,

Bruce**

-- 
 Bruce D. Lightner
 Lightner Engineering
 La Jolla, California
 Voice: +1-858-551-4011
 FAX: +1-858-551-0777
 Email: lig...@li...
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