Is it:
- A learning tool for .NET, C# and embedded systems?
- A prototyping tool for early designs including for testing out wild ideas?
- A key component in real-life systems, due to low cost, lots of peripherals etc?
- A time-waster, as it’s almost too easy to test ideas that might lead nowhere?
- All of the above?
In any case, I spent a few hours today converting a rather light-weight open-source Web server into a very light-weight Web server to use in the Netduino.
Despite its small size it supports multiple scripts/commands and multiple URL arguments, currently of the GET type, but easily also POST, yet for simple control applications it’s enough with GET.
It’s also easy to create Web pages, including forms, for data input and output.
It doesn’t support multiple sessions yet, so all users access the Web server with the same state. I need to fix that. In some cases this is what is desired, but very often not.
It’s very fast as everything’s handled in the same code and with a minimum of “fancy programming”.
The application showcased is only 8 kbyte together with the Web server and the page content. Applications become small in part because they are stored and run as high-level byte code rather than machine code. Performance should though be considerably worse than for machine code.