RE: [avr-gcc-list] Fwd: [Tinyos-help] TinyOs avr-gcc-4

[Eric Weddington]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Regehr [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 3:31 PM
> To: Eric Weddington
> Cc: 'David Gay'; address@hidden; 'Eric Gnoske'; 'Avr
> List Server'; 'TinyOS Development'
> Subject: RE: [avr-gcc-list] Fwd: [Tinyos-help] TinyOs avr-gcc-4
>
> Eric I'm not an authority on this topic but here are my two cents:
>
> - nesC adds plenty of value beyond facilitating inlining, for
> example the
>   component model, support for concurrency, generic
> components, network
>   types, etc.
>
> - I see no reason why nesC/TinyOS cannot use the latest and
> greatest AVR
>   toolchain.  Probably it's mainly a matter of the TinyOS maintainers
>   finding time for toolchain work.  Also note that some
> TinyOS/nesC ports
>   like msp430 are hopelessly mired in gcc3 for the foreseeable future.
>
> - David has spent a fair amount of effort on C
> interoperability for nesC
>   programs.
>
> - nesC isn't that obscure, I think it can parse all of C.

Hi John,

I meant "obscure" in the sense that very few people outside of the academic
circle of sensor networks will have knowledege of it, or even care to learn
it, which is a big factor in the commercialization of the technology of
sensor networks. Working engineers don't want to take the time to go learn
NesC, which they will have to do to even use TinyOS. Since NesC is a
superset of C, all of TinyOS and applications on top of it can be
implemented in plain C. NesC is not a requirement. This is a factor in the
creation of MantisOS as a sensor network OS written in plain C. This shows
that it can be done.

Eric Weddington