Very interesting approach, and pretty straight-forward as you said. Thanks for sharing that.

Have you considered letting the compiler produce DWARF-formatted debug information and using an existing DWARF library to handle the symbol to address mapping? I've had good success with this method for controlling embedded systems from a desktop PC, though not when the host and target are the same computer.

I started thinking about it, but quite fast decided to roll my own self-contained system. Not because it was an informed decision, but felt more fun :P