B# language for embedded development. And as a D competitor

[kris]

Bee Sharp wrote:
> Excelent article about a new language targeted to embedded development.
> 
> http://www.embedded.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=183700818
> 
> "The B# language includes efficient boxing/ unboxing conversions, field
> properties, device addressing registers, interrupt handlers, deterministic
> memory defragmenter, and multi-threading capabilities."

That is interesting. The ioreg and interrupt handling is nicely done. D 
could certainly learn a thing or two from the get|set accessor design ~ 
very clean.

That said, B# is not really targeted at the devices claimed ~ you really 
need more than a couple KB of RAM for a class-oriented system. Thus it's 
more likely to be targeting devices with a MB or more of memory; such as 
phones and PDAs, etc. This is a huge market where I keep harping on 
about D having a great opportunity to shine, and establish a solid 
foothold. Just think about how many phones there are in the world 
compared to PC's; and take a look at growth statisitics for India and 
China (of cell providers). Hardly surprising B# is targeted right there.

Anyway; if D had an equivalent mechanism for handling ioreg & 
interrupts, and GDC were hooked up to the GCC ARM and H8S backends, B# 
would not have much very offer in comparison (although the B# get|set 
design is far more elegant IMO). I suppose one could use alias and/or 
templates to provide an equivalent for ioreg? The embedded assembler 
would be seriously useful (assuming it supported the target device)

Thoughts?

- Kris