AVR-Chat

> From: David Kelly
> 
> On Apr 15, 2005, at 6:43 PM, Chuck Hackett wrote:
> 
> > Well, I discovered part of my problem.  ....
> > I'm thinking that it has something to do with the
> > differences in support for stdout (usart) but I haven't nailed it down.
> 
> I see a different religious thread there, that of casually using
> library stdio, malloc, etc, in an embedded application. I'm against it.
> Your project may be, "written in C", but its running in a totally
> different environment than a Unix server.
> ....

Hi David,

Being new to this environment I'm still "getting my sea legs" here but I can see
your point.  As a new person on the block, I would assume that library functions
provided by an embedded C compiler suite would be "appropriate" for the embedded
environment if properly used.  Obviously, "properly used" varies by situation:
lots of "printf"s are probably not appropriate when trying to cram significant
functionality into a Atmel "Tiny" chip but may be perfectly appropriate in other
circumstances on a ATMega128.

In a past life I have been in situations where every byte was precious - even to
the point of stealing a display buffer byte for use in the code of a 2Kb
terminal application (Incoterm terminals if anyone knows what they are).

Unless you're developing an application that has high volume and is price
sensitive these days I think memory is cheaper than man-hours.  My projects are
personal, low volume (1 or two) for control, instrumentation, etc. and in my
case I've 'standardized' on the larger chips due mostly to JTAG support, code
"elbow room", SRAM, and interfaces supported (i.e.: flexibility).

So, yes, I think you're correct in saying that "its running in a totally
different environment than a Unix server" but using *well-written* libraries can
provide a lot of tested functionality and cut down implementation time.

Cheers,

Chuck Hackett
"Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment"
7.5" gauge Union Pacific Northern (4-8-4) 844
http://www.whitetrout.net/Chuck