RE: interpreted languages

People are combining two issues. The first is "should the programs be
machine and system independent" and the second is "should they be interpreted"?

Of the latter, probably not, for the reasons mentioned. Of the former,
definitly. My experience with the Itsy project when I was at WRL was that
we had more people start app development once a simple machine-independent
development environment was available. This allowed people to test on one
machine and run on another. Also, the development environment (java)
made software development easier. By comparison, the existing graphics
environment was one that had been made incompatible with the mainstream
version because e.g., the modular structure using indirect jumps had been
removed to promote efficiency.

One important thing to remember is that there's no point in having a pocket
computer with only one or two very efficient applications. Allowing people
to explore the range of opportunities for pocket computers is the most thing
right now.

We published an analysis of some aspects of the Java system in a sigmetrics
paper. More recently, we published energy aspects of memory
system allocation in the IMMS symposium. It's not always the case that
e.g., garbage collection and JIT's are that expensive - in fact, running
a JIT wasn't that much of an overhead on the itsy.

A better approach all around would be to use a mechanism like "Omniware"
or a machine independent format that allows more optimization and more
rapid translation than Java.

-----Original Message-----
From: handhelds-admin@handhelds.org
[mailto:handhelds-admin@handhelds.org]On Behalf Of Keith Packard
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 6:18 PM
To: Russ Nelson
Cc: handhelds@handhelds.org
Subject: Re: [Handhelds] interpreted languages

> Question: Should most applications for the iPAQ be written in an
> interpreted language?

I think no. Here's my rational:
        1) handheld computers have limited battery power.
        2) each instruction/memory reference takes some joules.
        3) interpreted programs execute more instructions and reference
           more memory than compiled programs.
        4) interpreted programs will reduce battery life.
        5) ref: newton battery life with NewtonScript

Even if the interpeted program is "fast enough" for the user, interpreted
programs will waste precious joules of battery life.

keithp@keithp.com XFree86 Core Team SuSE, Inc.

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Received on Wed Sep 27 07:37:57 2000