Programming Embedded Systems in C and C++

10 Chapter 1: Introduction

Other Embedded Languages

Of course, C is not the only language used by embedded programmers. At least

three other languages—assembly, C++, and Ada—are worth mentioning in greater

detail.

In the early days, embedded software was written exclusively in the assembly lan-

guage of the target processor. This gave programmers complete control of the pro-

cessor and other hardware, but at a price. Assembly languages have many disad-

vantages, not the least of which are higher software development costs and a lack

of code portability. In addition, finding skilled assembly programmers has become

much more difficult in recent years. Assembly is now used primarily as an adjunct

to the high-level language, usually only for those small pieces of code that must

be extremely efficient or ultra-compact, or cannot be written in any other way.

C++ is an object-oriented superset of C that is increasingly popular among embed-

ded programmers. All of the core language features are the same as C, but C++

adds new functionality for better data abstraction and a more object-oriented style

of programming. These new features are very helpful to software developers, but

some of them do reduce the efficiency of the executable program. So C++ tends to

be most popular with large development teams, where the benefits to developers

outweigh the loss of program efficiency.

Ada is also an object-oriented ...