What advantages does CDEV provide over native control system libraries?
• A device (object) oriented view of the control system, organized by type of device, in which all devices of a common type have similar (I/O) properties. • A uniform interface to a variety of native control systems, allowing applications written to use this virtual control system interface to be portable. • Tools for building object oriented network components, accessible transparently by control system clients. • Does CDEV only provide lowest common denominator capability? No, in many cases CDEV supplements capabilities of the underlying system. Examples of extended capabilities: • Array I/O (even if underlying system is not array oriented). • Introspection, the ability to discover the names of devices, and names of their properties, dynamically (at run time). • Support for tcl/tk and Java. • Grouping of I/O operations (for synchronization). • Network components for building multi-tier systems. • Does the extra layer on top of the native system hurt performance? For all useful applic
