David Brown wrote: : Dennis Clark wrote: : > Hi all, : > : > I've looked through the threads about embedded Python that are a year : > and a half old, and I thought that I'd ask this question now to see if : > anything has changed. : > : > Has anyone, or is anyone working with Python in an embedded Linux : > environment? Mine is NO where near as constrained as a cell phone since : > I've got plenty of memory to work with, I'm just running a Linux 2.4 kernel : > on an ARM9 platform. : > : > Are there success stories for Python on embedded Linux systems today? : > The embedded Java JVM's seem to all be propriatary and have quite high : > license fees (don't mention Kaffe, it seems pretty fragile to me.) : > : > I'm a bit of a newb when it comes to Python, is there anyone with experience : > compiling it on Linux platforms that can offer me pointers to try this out : > myself? : > : > regards, : > DLC
: While Python is a great language on PC's and servers, I think it's a bit : heavy for most embedded systems - even powerful ones. It has a great : deal of flexibility, but that comes at a cost - interpretation speed is : a lot slower than running java byte code in a JVM. Often that doesn't : matter too much, especially if you can make good use of features such as
Actually, the speed issue is a contendable one. I've heard exactly the opposite elsewhere. And Java has a VERY heavy footprint and usually some rather expensive licensing structures that precludes its use in a product that may only sell in the hundreds a year. Python on the other hand is completely Open System with no licensing structure at all. That latter is quite attractive.
: dicts and list comprehensions, whose implementation is extremely : efficient, or if your time-consuming code is in C. But it's still a big : system - expect to require a lot of disk/flash space, even when you've : cut out the libraries you don't need.
True, it can be tuned to leave out those bits that aren't needed.
: That said, there was a project ("pippi", IIRC) porting python to Palm : PDAs running 68k processors, and if you've got the space it is certainly : possible.
: Other options if you want to use java are to compile it to native code : with gjc - I have no idea how well that works.
: A very embedded-friendly scripting language is "lua" - I haven't used it : (yet), but it might fit your needs and be easier to get running on a : small system.
My system is not all that small, I'll have many MB's in the FLASH and several MB in system RAM, so I'm not going to be nearly as constrained as a cell phone, for instance.
As in all things, YMMV seems to be the usually consensus.
DLC