I concur with those who hold the Hi-Tech product in high regard. The single
most
valuable feature it has, I think, is its dependability, both the manual and
the compiler.

When I need to find something in the manual, it is organized in a fashion
similar
to many compiler manuals in the past that I have dealt with, so I never feel
that
I'm going to waste time looking in it for something. (rummage, rummage,
anyone wanna see
my AT&T C manual, - how about the 'yellow' book ? What's this here ? Unix
BSD 4.2 cc man pages !
compared to some of these, the Hi-Tech manual is golden).

The compiler is dependable, as well: few, if any, surprises in the code it
generates or what it accepts in the way of constructs (side-effect
philosophies not-withstanding....8^).

In some ways, it is amazing that a compiler for an embedded controller can
be more ANSI conforming (or compliant, or compatible, or whateverthehell it
is that I mean) than some
recent 'big-time' compilers for multi-user systems.

We use C because it saves time and still allows us to do whatever we need
to, quickly and efficiently, to manipulate a chip. Compilers like CCS with
their 'ever-so-tempting' handy features, like built-in serial routines or
I2C, can end up taking more time debugging; one never knows quite what the
compiler is doing behind the scenes unless one dives into the asm code
to check it out - well, what happens to the time-savings then ?

-----------------------------------------
Kenneth C. Finney
=========================================
Wilkes Associates, Inc.
Software Engineering - Embedded Systems
Design & Development - Project Management
=========================================
Office:  (416) 445-9224
Mobile:  (416) 453-6400
-----------------------------------------

 >
 >
 > I find the HiTech manual organized nicely. It is _not_ a C tutorial.
 > Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I wouldn't change it.
 > Another manual or
 > another section of the manual for beginners would be a good idea.
 >
 > Code generation is really quite good. Many times when I
 > debugging I find
 > code that I couldn't improve on. It's certainly the best
 > compiler I've
 > worked with in terms of generated code.
[snip]
 >
 > The lastest version of the HiTech compiler merges well with
 > the latest
 > MPLAB. It is a great improvement over previous versions. I
 > don't know if
 > this is Clyde's work or Microchip's work, but Good Job!.
 >
 > Regard, Jim Ham