4 ms·

Just a nitpick... but I’ve seen people who aren’t working on what i would consider typical embedded recommend eLua and MicroPython readily without ever mentioni

Just a nitpick... but I’ve seen people who aren’t working on what i would consider typical embedded recommend eLua and MicroPython readily without ever mentioning the downsides that mPy needs 128k+ ROM and includes a ridiculous standard lib most of which you would never use on embedded, and eLua supports some Cortex m3 and is a dead project. These two you mentioned are more of people using Rasp Pi syyle embedded (Cortex m-series vs Cortex A/R series... small devices vs phone processors). The issue is everyone has this “great idea” for an embedded language to replace C which means device headers in the Lang, and that’s way too much to support. If the goal is to replace C imo it’s a waste of time. But there is a market IMO for an embedded lang that you can execute tests and scripts from C in a VM that can foreign function interface back to C functions. There is on that uses JS called mJS but I found the one of the guys that supports it to be extremely rude and unhelpful. Documention is lacking. You basically need to be an expert in JS to get started. And then they doubled their ROM use age from 23k to ~50k. But it does seem to be the best out there for the goals I stated. I’m still on the hunt.

fundamental 8y ago
It depends upon what's the target you're trying to embed into. If you're trying to put something on a PIC or an 8 bit AVR, you're down to something like assembly, C, or a very low memory language like forth. If you're looking at larger targets like the ESP32, then you can use an embeddable python, ruby, lua, js, etc without being too concerned. On something like a raspberry pi compute time likely ends up being more of a concern than memory or build complexities. The other target is trying to embed some interpreter in a larger application, which ends up being mostly constrained by how nice the language is as well as how nice the C API barrier ends up being. C is certainly not going anywhere, but it is pretty cool that other options are being built to lower the barrier of entry for some application domains.
- vvanders 8y ago
  FWIW there's still a pretty large delta from Lua and JS as far as embedding targets go. We use to run our whole game state in a 800kB fixed block on a 8mb system heap in vanilla Lua(pre-LuaJIT) with good success. I've done some poking at various embedded JS frameworks like Duktape and it's pretty easy to trip on various memory leaks[1] that make it really hard to recommend it as a viable platform for memory constrained spaces. [1] http://point.davidglasser.net/2013/06/27/surprising-javascript-memory-leak.html http://point.davidglasser.net/2013/06/27/surprising-javascri...
- nickpsecurity 8y ago
  One project used ATS for an 8-bitter: http://metasepi.org/doc/metasepi-icfp2015-arduino-ats.pdf http://metasepi.org/doc/metasepi-icfp2015-arduino-ats.pdf http://www.ats-lang.org http://www.ats-lang.org Chez Scheme used to run on 8-bit platform, too. Then there's Pascal and BASIC dialects for microcontrollers. Astrobe has Oberon dialect for ARM Cortex's. AVR-Ada lets you use Ada with AVR's. OcaPIC put Ocaml subset on PIC microcontrollers. People are using C because most people already use C with the ecosystem benefits that follow. Although C and assembly are dominant, there are other options available if people think their pro's and con's line up with their needs.
  - rurban 8y ago
    That's excellent news. ATS is one of the best languages out there. It used to beat C in the shootout benchmarks, and adds much better security and types than C/C++. I'll try to use in my next embedded job, where they do just C.
  - PeCaN 8y ago
    Always cool to see ATS in the wild. Higher-order functions on an 8-bit CPU makes me happy. :D
- pjmlp 8y ago
  There are Basic and Pascal as well, there are a few embedded companies still selling compilers.
detaro 8y ago
I don't see why you'd use MicroPython on a raspi-class device, unless you can't use a OS that runs CPython for for some reason. MicroPython is more for smaller stuff.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  If you have 1/2 your code in C and want a Python VM for one reason. But keep in mind that even MicroPy recommends 256k ROM, which is before your program at all, that excludes nearly all Cortex M series and 16 and 8 bit micros. So that’s what brought me to Pi in the first place.
ricardobeat 8y ago
Check out http://duktape.org http://duktape.org. Extremely easy to embed, great performance, and can go down to a ridiculous 1.5KB of RAM at startup. This and JerryScript (https://github.com/jerryscript-project/jerryscript https://github.com/jerryscript-project/jerryscript) are the two most active embedded JS engines.
sitkack 8y ago
How is eLua dead? https://github.com/elua/elua https://github.com/elua/elua eLua is famously used in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NodeMCU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NodeMCU firmware for the ESP8266, a non-Arm based system.
eggy 8y ago
Have you tried Zig? [1] I tried Rust, but found I made better progress with Zig, and I can see it being a good, incremental replacement for C. [1] https://ziglang.org/

fundamental 8y ago

It depends upon what's the target you're trying to embed into. If you're trying to put something on a PIC or an 8 bit AVR, you're down to something like assembly, C, or a very low memory language like forth. If you're looking at larger targets like the ESP32, then you can use an embeddable python, ruby, lua, js, etc without being too concerned. On something like a raspberry pi compute time likely ends up being more of a concern than memory or build complexities. The other target is trying to embed some interpreter in a larger application, which ends up being mostly constrained by how nice the language is as well as how nice the C API barrier ends up being. C is certainly not going anywhere, but it is pretty cool that other options are being built to lower the barrier of entry for some application domains.

vvanders 8y ago
FWIW there's still a pretty large delta from Lua and JS as far as embedding targets go. We use to run our whole game state in a 800kB fixed block on a 8mb system heap in vanilla Lua(pre-LuaJIT) with good success. I've done some poking at various embedded JS frameworks like Duktape and it's pretty easy to trip on various memory leaks[1] that make it really hard to recommend it as a viable platform for memory constrained spaces. [1] http://point.davidglasser.net/2013/06/27/surprising-javascript-memory-leak.html http://point.davidglasser.net/2013/06/27/surprising-javascri...
nickpsecurity 8y ago
One project used ATS for an 8-bitter: http://metasepi.org/doc/metasepi-icfp2015-arduino-ats.pdf http://metasepi.org/doc/metasepi-icfp2015-arduino-ats.pdf http://www.ats-lang.org http://www.ats-lang.org Chez Scheme used to run on 8-bit platform, too. Then there's Pascal and BASIC dialects for microcontrollers. Astrobe has Oberon dialect for ARM Cortex's. AVR-Ada lets you use Ada with AVR's. OcaPIC put Ocaml subset on PIC microcontrollers. People are using C because most people already use C with the ecosystem benefits that follow. Although C and assembly are dominant, there are other options available if people think their pro's and con's line up with their needs.
- rurban 8y ago
  That's excellent news. ATS is one of the best languages out there. It used to beat C in the shootout benchmarks, and adds much better security and types than C/C++. I'll try to use in my next embedded job, where they do just C.
- PeCaN 8y ago
  Always cool to see ATS in the wild. Higher-order functions on an 8-bit CPU makes me happy. :D
pjmlp 8y ago
There are Basic and Pascal as well, there are a few embedded companies still selling compilers.

detaro 8y ago

I don't see why you'd use MicroPython on a raspi-class device, unless you can't use a OS that runs CPython for for some reason. MicroPython is more for smaller stuff.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
If you have 1/2 your code in C and want a Python VM for one reason. But keep in mind that even MicroPy recommends 256k ROM, which is before your program at all, that excludes nearly all Cortex M series and 16 and 8 bit micros. So that’s what brought me to Pi in the first place.

ricardobeat 8y ago

Check out http://duktape.org http://duktape.org. Extremely easy to embed, great performance, and can go down to a ridiculous 1.5KB of RAM at startup. This and JerryScript (https://github.com/jerryscript-project/jerryscript https://github.com/jerryscript-project/jerryscript) are the two most active embedded JS engines.

sitkack 8y ago

How is eLua dead? https://github.com/elua/elua https://github.com/elua/elua eLua is famously used in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NodeMCU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NodeMCU firmware for the ESP8266, a non-Arm based system.

eggy 8y ago

Have you tried Zig? [1] I tried Rust, but found I made better progress with Zig, and I can see it being a good, incremental replacement for C. [1] https://ziglang.org/