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- Path: brtph500.bnr.ca!hunnell
- From: hunnell@bnr.ca (John Hunnell P840)
- Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.lang.c++,comp.realtime,comp.dcom.telecom.tech,comp.arch.embedded
- Subject: Re: Can OO be successful in real-time embedded systems?
- Date: 11 Apr 1996 13:56:47 GMT
- Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.
- Distribution: world
- Message-ID: <4kj32v$hu6@brtph500.bnr.ca>
- References: <316BF0C5.1FE1@condat.de> <dibaldDpnpBH.5Et@netcom.com>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: brtphb10.bnr.ca
- Originator: hunnell@brtphb10
-
-
- > I'd bet that the software that operates the networks and switches isn't
- > done in 'OO' for the same reasons. Last time I looked at the cards in a
- > telephone network bay, I saw thousands of 8032's doing the hardware
- > control. There were one or two of them on each interface card in a
- > network terminal that had tens-of-thousands of telephone lines passing
- > thru it.
-
- How much would you like to bet. I am working on my second large
- switch product at Nortel using OO with C++. Our product handles
- hundreds of lines or trunks. The first product I worked on is
- adding OO to a non OO environment while the second is being
- designed from the bottom up and using OO extensively. It
- is using a PPC603 (and other 32 bit processors), not an 8 bit
- processor. I might add that it is using a third party multitasking
- OS with many different tasks. Some of the tasks are designed
- using various OO tools while others are non-OO. They can coexist
- in the same system.
-
- A couple quick impressions of OO in embedded systems:
- - Yes the tools are lacking.
- - If you think OO slows down your product, then you are not
- experienced enough in OO and are poorly designing your product.
- If you try to instantiate 300 objects every time you try to
- place a phone call, control a motor, etc. something is drastically
- wrong with your design. Reatime requirements sometimes require
- you to modify your OO design from the "ideal" design just like
- it does with procedural design. Even virtual function calls only
- require an extra table lookup to make the method call (can you
- say pointer to function call in C).
- - I would agree that very small embedded systems may not benefit
- from OO. OO is just a tool. The larger the design, the more your
- design can benefit from OO. If the design is small enough, OO
- may be overcomplicating things that are not very complex but if
- you have a large design, it can help manage the complexity.
-
- Eddie Hunnell
- --
- Eddie Hunnell
- Bell Northern Research
- hunnell@bnr.ca
-
-