[Mono-list] Embedded Mono queries

[H.W.Thomas]

Dear Mono Team,
I am evaluating the use of Mono CLR for an embedded control system, and
would value comments
on a couple of areas.

1)  How to link a class's field names to hardware addresses.  The I/O
drivers will update a common
memory area with current input data values, and I want to know how to make
these addresses available
in a symbolic form to C# programs.  The Reflection.Emit namespace looks to
be one way in which a list
of symbols and addresses could be read in and a Class (say HardwareIO)
'constructed' in which the
offsets from the class base address could be allocated to the symbols. (This
would also appear to be a
way in which the same memory location could be defined both as System.Int32
and as a BitVector32,
which could be useful).  Does this sound the right way to go, or is there
any more obvious approach?
In previous systems, which have used a mixture of 'C' and assembler, (tied
together by the linker)
there has been some way of giving a symbol a fixed hardware address, but I'm
not sure of the way to go
with the CLR.

2)  Debugging facilities.  What is available/planned for Mono?  With an
embedded system, any
debugging will need to be done remotely, over an an ethernet link.
Initially, just some form of Watch
points would be useful, but I would like to know what is proposed in the
longer term.
I don't think this is part of ECMA, so is this an area that isn't being
tackled yet?

I realise that these queries are a bit off-list, and I am asking them
without very much in-depth reading
at this stage, so don't hesitate to tell me where to go if there is a more
suitable forum.

Many thanks,

Hywel Thomas
Control Specialists Ltd, UK