In the PIC projects I write I use C almost exclusively.  The reason for
this for me is ease of code reuse, ease of readability, and its just plain
old easier to write in.  I never have to worry about code page bits, ram
bank bits, local variables, etc. etc.  Also, I have ported a number of
complicated functions written for other platforms quite easily to the PIC.

The detriments are slightly larger code size which I mitigate by being
careful about how and what C statements I use and when.

Now for the PIC, a C compiler really just ends up being a really excellent
Macro Assembler, but the benefits are huge.  I wouldn't recommend to anyone
starting out to start writing programs exclusively in ASM.  Its very
important to know the PIC ASM commands, but that is primarily just for
verification when something doesn't work right, and when occasionally you
must write something very time intensive.

My estimates for the medium sized project that I am working on currently
that C is costing me about 25% of my code space.  A lot of this is due to
sheer laziness because we have a ton of extra space currently.  The gain in
time spent implementing and debugging, however, is well over 90%.  As in I
believe it would take 10x as long to develop and debug this program in
straight assembler.

YMMV





Erik Reikes
Senior Software Engineer
Xsilogy, Inc.

ereikes@xsilogy.com
ph : (858) 535-5113
fax : (858) 535-5163
cell : (858) 663-1206