Why are C, C++, and LISP so prevalent in embedded devices and robots?

Question

It seems that the software language skills most sought for embedded devices and robots are C, C++, and LISP. Why haven\'t more recent languages made inroads into these applicat

Answer 1

Having worked with robotics, my answer is efficiency. Yes, you can run a Java Virtual Machine on cell phones. But how efficient will it be? I was on a team that wanted to run a Java Virtual Machine on a full Windows XP machine on a robot, running multiple realtime monitoring applications in Matlab. Needless to say, we were dropping frames like it was no one's business. Moral of the story, override people who don't understand computing even if you need to override your supervisors if it's going to sink your operation.

Yes, you could run Python, and I've seen it done to manage multiple C processes. But at the end of the day, running C allows you to do some direct manipulation of connections so much easier and reliably than some of the higher level codes, and therefore is preferred.