Real-Time Java™ Platform Programming

Very Powerful and Dangerous Features of the RTSJ

Immortal memory is the deadly seducer of the RTSJ. It is seductive because it is as easy to use as heap memory, but it works anywhere, and never causes garbage collection. It is dangerous because it is a limited resource and it runs out after you are committed to it.

There's so much, no one will miss the little I need Many systems have a little bit of battery-backed static RAM. It is useful stuff because it is as fast and easy to use as ordinary RAM, but data stored there will survive through power failures. Unfortunately, it costs much more than ordinary RAM. The system designer tells the hardware engineer that the system will need some amount, say, 2421 bytes of nonvolatile RAM. The hardware ...