We’ve been using the .Net Micro framework and Gadgeteer hardware for about 6 months now developing an oceanographic instrument platform that has to run completely unattended for years at a time. The whole .Net Micro/Gadgeteer ecosystem has proven really effective (but not without it’s own set of frustrations like why is it so damn hard to figure out what assemblies we need to reference for some library calls and why are some string operations intolerably slow?).
However, I digress. My real question is given that Gadgeteer hardware is intended for embedded applications, which implies at least a minimal level of deterministic response for many applications, doesn’t it make sense to be able to turn off Garbage Collection if we’re willing to accept the responsibility for managing memory in our own application? As far as I can tell this isn’t possible with the current development environment but is it possible it may be an option in the future?
I’ll be interested to hear other, more experienced, opinions.
Cheers - Gene