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Subject: 
Why Java for Robots (was NXT and bluetooth enabled phones)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Tue, 17 Jan 2006 14:58:22 GMT
Original-From: 
PeterBalch <PeterBalch@*spamcake*compuserve.com>
Viewed: 
1468 times
  
Juergen Stuber wrote:

it has no garbage collector, e.g.,
That is the top item on my list to add to Lejos,
and on NXT it is possible :-)

Why? Full Java requires it but you're not trying to make a full Java
implementation. Why can't all your data be statically allocated by the
compiler (not allocated at run-time)? Sure, you'd have to tweak the
language a little but so what? You're never aiming to run the code
cross-platform.

Forget JVM.

No, there would have to be a JSR for a tiny real time Java first.

Let's hope it comes Real Soon.

But you need to be a better more disciplined programmer for C
than for Java, as it is much easier to mess things up.

Examples please. Java is better than C but how much better?

Anyone who does pointer arithmetic should be shot. If the compiler forces
you to do it for "efficiency" then the compiler-writer should be shot.
Bounds checking should be done at compile-time. If the language doesn't
allow that then the language-designer should be shot. (Is that an extreme
view? How many person-years have been wasted by programmers hunting for
loose pointers? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? If seventy person years
equals one life then how many lives have been wasted?)

What is a robot sitting on Mars to do if it gets an "out of memory" or
"illegal pointer value" or "array bounds exceeded" error? The first two
should never ever happen in a robot. The last should have been caught by
the compiler.

Counter arguments please ...

Peter



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Why Java for Robots
 
Hi Peter, (...) there are plenty of other languages, many in research, that sit on top of a Java VM, and the interesting ones need garbage collection (I've been explicitly asked this for Curry :-) ). Also, other kinds of VMs are popular with Lisp (...) (18 years ago, 17-Jan-06, to lugnet.robotics)
  Re: Why Java for Robots (was NXT and bluetooth enabled phones)
 
(...) Peter, I know that its not quite the same thing, but the robotic space vehicle DeepSpace 1 was to use visual navigation and rendevouz with an asteroid. The light wasn't good enough, and being 300+ miles off course at the final approach, (...) (18 years ago, 18-Jan-06, to lugnet.robotics)

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