An apparatus for controlling, monitoring, and communicating with an optical device, photonic integrated circuit or subassembly is provided. The apparatus includes an optical device or subassembly; and afield programmable device including programmable hardware gates coupled to the optical device or subassembly. The field programmable device may be configured to implement a plurality of functions at a gate level for controlling, monitoring, and/or communicating with the optical device or subassembly, each of the plurality of functions being configured to execute as a concurrent process, without use of a microprocessor or a microcontroller. Further, a programmable optical device, such as a programmable optical transmitter, optical subassembly, or transceiver based on a tunable laser having field programmable device centric control systems with software-enabled features offer extensive real-time control and monitoring functionality based on for example actual traffic flows.