Prototyping a Real-Time Embedded System in Smalltalk

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of AMEP, a prototype ESM signal processor which has been implemented in Smalltalk using an actor-based design methodology, Arguments for choosing an OOPS for implementing such applications are reviewed. AMEP is a large system which includes both hard real-time and knowledge-based subsystems. Extensive software metrics are presented for each subsystem and used to compare the characteristics of code designed for different purposes. For example, analysis of this data suggests that knowledge-based applications may be more difficult to port to an object-based language such as Ada than hard real-time systems. Team programming, productivity, documentation standards and other software engineering issues are also addressed. © 1989, ACM. All rights reserved.