The Java programming language is what most are calling « the new COBOL« , many companies have adopted it in their intranet, DB communication infrastructure and internal system such as employee management and payroll. It’s used have widely spread over the last few years and many school are making it their « default choice » for teaching programming principe and Object Oriented concept.

One domain among which Java is not widely spread is the embedded device market. Yes, I know that many applications can be developped for a smartphone and that the Squawk Virtual Machine is meant to be used on very small electronic devices. I also know that some Java specification are written and implemented for the real-time/embedded world, this article is very complete and interesting on the global subject of critical embedded application and Java. But when it comes to an experimented embedded developer to develop in Java, it may become extremely difficult by the simple fact that Java doesn’t have a simple way to do direct bit manipulation. An habit many embedded developer are used to…

My friend J-F Im, which happen to be one of my ex-team mate in the SONIA project, may have found a good way to reduce the hassle for embedded developer to adopt and use Java without losing their habit of using bits manipulation. He created a library called BitIO, bringing easy bit manipulation to the Java language. I did not try it and I must admit that its bean a while now that I’ve program something in Java since many of the work I have to do at Novariant is either related to a Linux driver (coded in C) or to the C++ application that run in Novariant’s ParaDyme embedded computer. But, knowing J-F Im, I’m pretty sure that the library he developed can be useful to a lot of peoples.