BabbleSim design objectives

When designing BabbleSim, and while mainaining it forward, the following were and will be the main targets:

• An industry tool, for industry needs:
  • Allow for real target code to run in simulations
  • Minimize 3rd party dependencies in common components
  • Permissive license
  • Compatible with multiple Linux distributions¹.
• Highly modular:
  • Minimize all types of requirements to possible external components/devices
  • No requirements for the programming or scripting language used
  • Allow in tree and out of tree external components
    • Get and use only the components you need
• Reproducible
  • Two equal runs shall yield the same result
  • Any randomness is controller with random seeds
• Fast
  • Fast execution
  • Fast compile/run iterations
• Allow to easily debug or instrument code
• Easy to automate and integrate in CI/regression flows
• Stable APIs: Do not break 3rd party devices
  • Maintain legacy compatibility in all APIs (In general interfacess are not removed or changed, but new ones are added)
  • When a library change breaks compatibility, a new version is created. The old library version is kept.
  • The Device-Phy interface is kept ABI compatible while possible

1. The target being: the 2 latest RedHats (6 & 7), 2 latest Ubuntu LTS (16.04 & 18.04), and the current Debian stable (Stretch). ↩