[Microkernel-devroom] [Talk-Proposal] Rathaxes - A DSL for device driver development, why and how?

[Louis Opter]

On Sat, 08 Dec 2012 00:16:54 +0100 Martin Decky <martin at decky.cz> wrote:

> Hello folks,
> 
> > We also discussed a little bit with Martin Děcký last year and it
> > seemed that we raised some interest, so here we are!
> 
> Yes, I can confirm that. I was and I am still interested in the
> topic. Even if microkernel systems can certainly provide more
> isolation and protection to/against the device drivers than
> monolithic systems, any means of making the drivers correct-by-design
> and simplifying their actual development is helpful.

That and also, make driver code more re-usable and more easy to
collaborate on; but I'm starting to spoil you :>.
 
> Louis, I just suggest that you focus your talk a little bit more on
> the (potential) benefits of a device driver DSL specifically for the 
> microkernel systems. Frankly, stressing in your abstract that a 
> prominent case study of yours is based on Linux is just a bit 
> provocative in the context of a microkernel devroom :)

Actually, I think there was a misunderstanding on our side while reading
the devroom's CFP. While the room is driven by micro-kernel development
teams, we thought that the list of topics would not be limited to
micro-kernels.

We'd be happy to focus our talk more on micro-kernels, but we aren't
there yet, our language isn't even entirely defined at this point. (We
are a small, but stubborn, team side project). We want to target any
kind of kernel, and our first generated code appears to be for Linux
because it was simpler and more common for a lot of people. It was
definitely not a provocation attempt :)

> On the other hand, Christian, if we are not in a serious time
> pressure already, we might give the topic a chance (and a slot). I
> can even vouch for them in the sense that the HelenOS team is indeed
> interested in adopting a technology like this in the future -- as we
> strongly believe that implementing compatibility wrappers for
> Linux/*BSD/whatever device drivers is not the best thing to do.

Thanks, now I understand why we might be a little bit outside the
expected scope of the devroom, but I still think this is the best place
to do our talk!

Best regards

-- 
Louis Opter