[Tinyos-help] TinyOS Design Questions - (Question-1)

[Faisal Aslam]

Hi,

I wish to discuss few NesC/TinyOS design related issue. I am not aware 
if any email list is dedicated to it hence I am sending first one of 
them here. I will send more such issue later.

Problem:- In NesC if I have to use a single command of an interface then 
I have to implement ALL of its event. Even though, I am not interested 
in any one of those events. Those empty functions with nothing in them 
make a programmers code cumbersome for no reason. May be you do not find 
it a problem but being a programmer I really find it annoying.

Solution:-  In object oriented languages, like Java, usually there are 
one default implementation of an interface. A programmer extends that 
default implementation and only overwrites functions he is interested in.
This save programmer time and make his code simple. However, I know NesC 
is not object-oriented and even does not have inheritance concept. 
However, I wonder why not NesC compiler while converting code to C can 
itself provide bodies for those events that a programmer has not 
implemented. It will keep programmer code simple and without those 
annoying empty function.
Btw I do not know how the implementation of the events are? If each one 
of them is called every time. We should consider using Observer design 
pattern. Hence those users who are interested in give event should 
"register" and receive it. These are just some preliminary thoughts and 
more thoughts could find better solutions but only if you also think 
that it is really a problem :)

Faisal