Re: Newbie question about porting

["Frederic Rudman" <frudman@...>]

>Sounds really strange - Lua on a TMS320 DSP.  Like using a Porsche
>to plow a field.  You may get it done but you won't be satisfied.

Hi! I'm not sure I understood that analogy but if it'll help, here's a brief
description of the problem I'm trying to solve, fyi.

We have an embedded device out in the field that could benefit from "remote"
programming. Currently updating the program is complicated by the fact that
all eeproms need to be rewritten, including the BIOS that holds the "update
code". This is because everytime the c program is changed and recompiled and
relinked, all mem references from the old program are no longer valid. So,
the whole bios has to be completely remotely reloaded/reburned, which is
problematic at best.

>From what I've seen so far, Lua is a really powerful language that also
seems to require a very small-footprint interpreter (in our case,
performance is not a big factor since the programs that will be run are
usually small and straightforward). If it can work for us, it eliminates the
need to redownload all the code and have to reload everthing anytime a
change, however small, needs to be made to the code.

With Lua, it may be possible to simply update the software 1 module at the
time, each module being really small. Further, the full bios containing the
update/burn modules never need to be "reburned" since the new way of
updating modules (i.e. the Lua modules) will be to simply save them in
regular eeprom memory: no muss, no fuss, no relinking!

I realize that it's not a glamorous application, but for us, Lua may be a
great solution if we can get it to work!!!


Sincerely,
Frederic Rudman
Chatham Software Corp.
(518) 392-8730