Notes for uc_tools lib

FIXME: Many posts could be moved here.


Entry: NS
Date: Mon Jan 13 19:21:56 CET 2020

#undef NS is not a good idea, because that kills compositionality.
Always do it at the "caller" end.


Entry: Pointers are expensive
Date: Mon Jan 13 22:16:13 CET 2020

Linked data structures easily ramp up memory usage on 32-bit systems.
Some ways to mitigate:

- use indices into arrays, globally known, or known in context

- same but implicitly in the memory hierarchy.  e.g. take into account
  limited memory size, start of RAM, and alignment.  e.g. a 16-bit
  pointer can address 256k if memory is aligned.


Of course binding to the memory layout is bad for portability.

So indices seem best.



Entry: Procedural static allocation
Date: Mon Jan 13 22:41:01 CET 2020

It is still possible to procedurally allocate data in case manual
allocation would be cumbersome.  Do the same as malloc(), only use a
bump allocator for a flat piece of memory.  If the data usage is
predictable, it can be computed by just running the code until
allocation succeeds.



Entry: Rust inspired static alloc
Date: Sat Jan 18 21:56:47 CET 2020

I'm surprised that many things can be done without the need for static
alloc.