-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


To clarify

>An "assembly" compiler does bugger all to the code,
>other than fill in the macros and equates, take out the
>comments, error trap etc.

There is no "assembly" compiler. It's an assembler.
It makes machine code out of assembler statements and directives.
RETLW 8  is exactly one word of assembler, and never anything else.
A compiler takes high level instructions, like "let A=25 Let B=9.72 Let
C=A*sqrt(B)"
and makes machine code.  You can find out how, but the whole point is that
you not look at what it's doing. Theoretically, you don't care. A small
change in some part of the code could theoretically result in many changes
all through the generated machine code.

>The code generated is pretty much what the programmer
>wrote line for line.  So yes the programmer has a VERY
>big influence on how good the code is but not the
>compiler.

It damn well better be EXACTLY what I wrote, line for line!
If not, it's broken.

>Where as a C compiler is a more "removed" from the PIC
>instruction set and therefore presents a variable from one
>compiler to the next, this is on top of the idiot behind the
>keyboard.

Here I agree. C is to some extent portable, and it encourages you
to ignore the machine's internal architechture and limitations/abilities.

The problem can crop up when C does something that is maybe locally
optimized, but
globally awkward. Maybe allocating registers for infrequent tasks and using
ram for
high speed tasks.


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.2 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com>

iQA/AwUBOPVJOYFlGDz1l6VWEQLoNQCgyXiOaMFimuHtP7oZRvxHWT/n7goAn259
J2YUBNxLPvhJSgAvF++coBAg
=ksHx
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----