[myhdl-list] Embedded Newsletter

[Christopher F. <chr...@gm...>]

Below I copied a portion of the Embedded.com Newsletter that was sent out on
10/15/2009.  It has a link to a MyHDL article, although the article is a
couple years old, it is nice to see the inclusion of MyHDL in the
newsletter.

~~~~~ Excerpt from Embedded.com Newsletter ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*TECH FOCUS - SCRIPTING LANGUAGES IN EMBEDDED SYSTEMS DESIGN* I had
forgotten how ubiquitous - and important - the many small and simple scripting
languages <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scripting_language> used in embedded
systems design are until I read the two articles by Matthew Scarpino and
Randy Melton that lead off this issue.

In "A brief introduction to the TCL scripting
language<http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/hBUav0RueqL0FrY0HTJG0EK>,"
Matt provides a brief tutorial on TCL, used by IBM to tie together all the
disparate elements in its Cell Multicore Programming
environment<http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/hBUav0RueqL0FrY0HTJR0EV>,
the subject of an earlier five part series. In "Using TCL to create a
virtual component in
Verilog<http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/hBUav0RueqL0FrY0HTJH0EL>,"
Randy describes the use of TCL in the EDA environment.

Both authors are dedicated fans of interpretive scripting languages in
general and TCL<http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/hBUav0RueqL0FrY0HRBU0EO>in
particular, and they convinced me to become a fan too. I searched the
Embedded.com design article archives and found about a dozen design features
on how scripting languages are used, including TCL,
Perl<http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/hBUav0RueqL0FrY0HTJN0ER>,
Python Network Spaces<http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/hBUav0RueqL0FrY0HTJI0EM>,
and the Turing-inspired Smart
Machine<http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/hBUav0RueqL0FrY0HTJM0EQ>
.

In "TCL adds extensibility to design
tools<http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/hBUav0RueqL0FrY0HTJL0EP>,"
TCL's creator John Ousterhaut describes why embedded developers need such
system integration languages. In "Implementing a processor independent
battery-powered wireless mesh
network<http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/hBUav0RueqL0FrY0G8oH0ET>,"
David Ewing describes the use of Python to create a wireless mesh software
protocol stack. Jan Decaluwe's article on the use of Python as a hardware
description language<http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/hBUav0RueqL0FrY0HTJO0ES>and
another article on the use
of Python to write parallel programs without specialized
tools<http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/hBUav0RueqL0FrY0HTJI0EM>round
out the selection.

Given the distributed, wirelessly connected network environment in which
embedded systems now operate as well as the use of multicore processors, I
think the importance of such integrative languages will increase. I would
like to hear from you about your experiences, how you are using these
languages in your designs, and what kinds of articles you would like to read
- and write - on these topics. (Embedded.com Editor Bernard Cole,
bc...@ac...)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`