Re: What about Embedded?

[Lluis Sanchez <lluis ximian com>]

> > The reality in this story is that application developers don't want to
> > care about this. This is why a lot of them prefer to develop using
> > virtual machines.
> > 
> > And this is why GNOME should accept and go for higher programming
> > languages and modern development techniques.
> > 
> > 
> 
> I totally agree but wouldn't it be better to use native languages that 
> offer all this like the D language (http://www.digitalmars.com/d/).
> 
> No one has ever justified why we need a VM given all its disadvantages 
> (speed - especially when mixing with native code, startup time, resource 
> usage, bloat etc)

I'll mention a couple of advantages not pointed out so far and which I
find fundamental:

1) Portability: one single binary for all platforms and architectures.
2) Code access security (CAS), ability to restrict the permissions of an
application or library.

Maybe those features are not fundamental right now (although very
convenient), but they will be in the future. 

GNOME needs to expand beyond the local desktop to be able to offer
applications which can compete with the Web 2.0. In order to survive in
an Internet based on services, we'll need an easy and secure way of
delivering applications and add-ins through the net, which can consume
those services. A VM is just perfect for this.

Lluis.