Re: [Vala] Vala for embedded systems, IDEs, debugging

[Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen <mikkel kamstrup gmail com>]

On 12 September 2012 07:41, Adrian Stern <adrian stern screenfood com> wrote:
> But didn't they drop the POSIX Profile with Vala 0.17.4?

If glib/GObject is too heavy for the embedded device in question I
don't think Vala is the right choice to begin with.

There are many cases where it's non-trivial to really have lowlevel
control of the memory - or where it requires quite deep Vala knowledge
to get it right. And from my experience these assumptions about memory
usage and code generation easily change from release to release. Don't
get me wrong; this is entirely acceptable I think. That's the reason I
use Vala, exactly to avoid fiddling with this! :-)

That said, I think you are looking at a *very* constrained device
these days if glib/GObject is too heavy. I'd suggest you try it out
before assuming a bunch of stuff.

Cheers,
Mikkel

> Adrian Stern
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> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: vala-list-bounces gnome org [mailto:vala-list-bounces gnome org] Im Auftrag von Thomas Jollans
> Gesendet: Dienstag, 11. September 2012 17:12
> An: vala-list gnome org
> Betreff: Re: [Vala] Vala for embedded systems, IDEs, debugging
>
>
> > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> > Von: vala-list-bounces gnome org [mailto:vala-list-bounces gnome org]
> > Im Auftrag von Joe Dluzen
> > Gesendet: Montag, 10. September 2012 16:32
> > An: vala-list gnome org
> > Betreff: [Vala] Vala for embedded systems, IDEs, debugging
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I've been following Vala for some time now, and am interested in using
> > it for embedded systems. Does anyone else have experience with that?
> > I'd like to hear both good and bad experiences.
>
>  On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 11:15:43 +0000, Adrian Stern wrote:
> > Hey There
> >
> > I'am also very intressted in hearing about this. Does vala work on the
> > ARMv6 architecture?
>
>
>  Vala is not specific to any processor architecture. Vala code is  compiled to C code, which is then 
> compiled by GCC to machine code. GCC  has good support for cross-compiling, so with a suitably powerful 
> build  system that knows how to call valac and a cross-gcc, (the autotools will  do the trick if used 
> properly) the language is not an issue.
>
>  So the more interesting question is: can and do you want to use glib?
>  Vala is generally used with glib/gobject, and many of its features  require linking against glib (which 
> may be impractical on your embedded  system, depending on the specs/requirements), but valac does have a  
> POSIX profile, which will generate POSIX-compliant C code without the  glib dependency. See  
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9550000/can-vala-be-used-without-gobject
>
>  So - using Vala on an embedded system is quite possible, but if you  choose to forego glib, you will have 
> to make do without many of Vala's  object-oriented features.
>
> > I have some related questions I hope to get some answers for:
> >
> > Is remote debugging supported?
>
>  Vala can be debugged with gdb. gdb is the swiss army knife of
>  debugging, embedded/remote included.
>
> > How is the IDE support? I checked the tools section of the website,
> > the most up to date one seemed to be MonoDevelop.
>
>  IDE support is dismal. If you want integrated editing and debugging,
>  your options are Anjuta and MonoDevelop, and from a brief look a few
>  months ago, Anjuta's Vala support is quite limited, and MonoDevelop's
>  Vala support is somewhat broken. (it looks like it used to be good, and
>  then things changed, but I don't know)
>
> > What about crash dumps, is there debugging support for them?
>
>  I'm not sure about that, but in general, you can use all features of
>  gdb and nemiver (a graphical front-end to gdb, and probably the most
>  pleasant Vala debugging experience around at this point) with Vala, but
>  will be quite aware of the fact that you're actually debugging C code
>  with Vala source line number annotations.
>
>  Thomas
>
>
>
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