All,

 My 2 cents worth.   As I have stated before, I have tried 'C', and
 'BASIC', and as far as I'm concerned, with PICS, neither of them is
 optimum or even that much faster.  I can put together a program in
 assembly nearly as fast as anyone else can in in a high level language.
 I own the 'CCS' 'C' compiler as well as PIC Basic Pro, and have used
 neither of them in the last year or so.  I use assembly exclusively.
 And have found I miss neither of the two HLL's I have.  I honestly
 don't know whty people in general don't like assembly.  It does have a
 learning curve, (and what doesn't), and it's maybe not as fast to develop
 software using assembly at first, but when you get used to it, I'm sure
 you'll find its not as difficult to quickly write nearly anything you need.
 At least that's my opinion.   Maybe with some of the newer PICs coming
 out, 'C' might make a little more sense, but I'll probably stay with
 assembly for my projects.

 P.S. I program PICs bot as a hobby for myself and as a function of my job.
      I have written programs for several PICS from 8 pin parts to the 68
      pin parts, and have had most of my designs integrated into the design
      of the system we were working on at the time.  And all have been in
      assembly.


                                             Regards,

                                               Jim



>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Brandon Stewart [SMTP:brandonstewart@ATTBI.COM]
>> Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 5:21 PM
>> To:   PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
>> Subject:      [PIC]: PIC development STINKS!
>>
>> I say that PIC needs to offer free C compilers for their
>> product, like some of their competitors, if they want to
>> be #1!  It was my understanding that Microchip set out
>> to differentiate itself from its competitors by offering
>> free development environments for its MCU's (like
>> MPLAB).  But today's toys are bigger, smarter, faster,
>> and often times the level of abstraction that is offered
>> by C is the preferable manner of doing things.  So why
>> dosen't Microchip continue their initiative of offering
>> real, usefull development tools (LIKE A C COMPILER) for
>> free?  Its competitors sure do!  It is my bet that they
>> get kickbacks from HIGH TECH not to do this!
>>
> Todays bigger, smarter and faster toys probably don't use PICs.  I
> really can't see what you are shouting about, you are given a (mostly)
> functional development environment with a perfectly good assembler and
> simulator.  If you are a professional who needs the advantages of a
> high level language, then you pay for the best you can buy and that
> cost will be trivial, even in the short term on a profitable product.
>
> If you are a hobbiest, then there are hobbiest C compilers available
> (CCS) and Scott's SDCC port is well on the way.  However, to use any of
> these products to produce compact, fast and bug free code with the
> minium of debugging time I'd say that a working knowledge of assembly
> was almost mandatory.
>
> If you are really that desparate to program in C for free, perhaps you
> should look at some of the more mature devices such as the 8051 which
> already have open source compilers.
>
> Regards
>
> Mike
>
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