[Faitas]

Hello there,

I have been thinking about this programming... I love WEB programming and I think I don't have to forgot it, but I want to program microcontrollers for a while, for a tests, for a free-time and so on. So I have a one question: Is C++ very good programming language for this programming? Or I can use Python? First of all, I want to create a LED screen with a message in it.

Thank you a lot.

[jjl]

C/C++ are good languages due to the fact that they are compiled down into machine code directly (machine codes are the instructions for the micro processor). Interpretive languages are not directly compiled down into machine code and therefore trying to get them to work on a micro processor seems to be a hack; however, there is a group (leaf labss) working on this right now:

http://leaflabs.com/2011/09/pymite/

My suggestion is to stick with either C or C++ for microprocessor programming.

[ishkabible]

it's not really a hack; it's no different form doing it on a desktop you just have fewer resources so the efficiency issue matters. also, things like python and ruby tend to have large libraries that do system specific things. Lua doesn't have these things or issue and can be easily run on an embedded system. there is the issue of where you store the files for interpretation however; that part can be more tricky on embedded systems but it's not a subject of research.

[turboscrew]

With smaller microcontrollers, I'd stick with C. Even C++ runtime may be too big.

Not all microcontrollers are 32-bit RISCs with hundreds of megs of memory.

Like atMega169: only 1 kB RAM and 32 kB of FLASH. Try to put 100MB java on it. With C you can still write a cruise control and still most of the RAM is spent for RS-buffers. Don't even dream of any operating system.