Retaining efficiency in an embedded system while introducing Lua as a means to improve maintainability: an actor model approach

Abstract

Embedded touch display systems with limited resources still require responsive user interfaces, which puts high demands on the efficiency of the software. Embedded systems are expensive to maintain due to the low-level programming languages used for efficiency. By integrating the Lua scripting language as a complement to C, and using the message passing semantics of the actor model, maintainability and modularity can be increased while retaining efficiency. With this approach it is possible to develop efficient embedded systems with high maintainability responsive enough to be used in touch screen systems.