Olin wrote:

>I hope you're not seriously suggesting one should run out and buy an RTOS to
>save writing a few tens of lines of code!  Evaluating RTOSs, ordering one,
>installing it, and reading its documentation would take many times longer
>than just writing the code.  Like you said, time is money.  And then you
>have something that you know exactly how it works, and can modify for future
>projects to suit.  All make versus buy decisions don't automatically come up
>"buy" because you want people to buy your product.

Getting up and running with any new product takes time, granted. But
the same can be said of moving from Assembly to C, or even newer
versions of MPLAB, and you're not seriously suggesting that people
shouldn't use certain PIC C compilers just because they're not free,
are you?

At the MASTER's class this year I was very upfront with attendees and
what Salvo can do for them.  After all, many are just now moving from
Assembly to C. For many, the idea of structured programming in C with
an RTOS is very appealing.

>I know you say you now program everything using your RTOS.  That only proves
>an RTOS can be used if you really want to.  If you didn't have an RTOS and
>didn't have the bias of trying to profit from one, you would find most
>problems can be solved very well without one.

Ah, but the corollary is that if you do have an RTOS, you will find
that most problems can be solved very well with it. And you don't
have to modify it for future projects. And Salvo Lite is free! And I
won't bore the list with all the benefits you get from an RTOS
approach in terms of portability, understandability, and
life-of-product management, etc.

Theoretically, any PIC application can be written without our RTOS.
It could be solved by writing in machine code, too, for an outlay of
exactly $0, with no value placed on one's time. But I don't think
anyone does that on the PICList. At least I hope not :-)

We'll have to agree to disagree, as neither of us is budging on this
one. We both recognize that the "other" method works, but  we each
think that our method is faster, cheaper and better. We're both
looking for customers. It's up to them to decide which path to take.

Cheers! I enjoy your acerbic wit.

--

  ______________________________________
   Andrew E. Kalman, Ph.D.   aek@pumpkininc.com

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