I think maybe you have just been using the wrong tools or haven't=
 done
enough projects in both assembler AND a good HLL to see a=
 significant
difference.

As an example, my favorite PIC tool is Bytecraft's MPC. It=
 produces
wonderfully compact code (as a few on the list have provided=
 examples
of), has some nice PIC specific language extensions that allow=
 for easy
"bit twiddling" for example, and let's you forget about banking,
paging, ISR context switching and all the other "fun" PIC=
 housekeeping
details. It's also easy to directly manipulate PIC hardware just=
 as you
would in assembler.

Using this tool, I recently had a project to replace a mechanical=
 timer
assembly with a PIC16C558 as well as adding a few user settable
parameters the mechanical timer did not have. I went from no code=
 to
working prototype in about 4 hours. That included setting up my=
 project
directory, writing a brief but fairly detailed functional=
 description
and setting up my editor's IDE for the project. It was about 100=
 lines
of C-code (around 200 program words) and 99% of it worked right=
 the
first time. I'm a good assembler programmer -- I've probably=
 written
many 100,000's if not 1,000,000+ lines of assembler for a lot of
different CPU's -- but I'll take a good C compiler any day, even=
 for
tiny programs. In fact, I think they save even more time as an=
 overall
percentage of the total on small projects (assuming you are=
 familiar
with the HLL tool).

Oh yeah, bad PIC tools are really bad. Bad HLL tools have=
 probably done
more to hurt using HLL's than any other thing.

Matt Pobursky
Maximum Performance Systems

On Fri, 2 Aug 2002 08:47:08 +0500, James Paul wrote:
>All,
>
>Everyone brings up some good points and I understand what is=
 being
>said.
>But I still maintain that HLL's for PIC's isn't necessarily a=
 saving
>grace. =A0 I might bring out my HLL's and try them again, but I=
 really
>do believe I'll go back to assembler. =A0 Maybe I'm a glutton for
>punishment, I don't know. =A0But I feel more comfortable with=
 assembler.
>I like taking care of the details. =A0 But I'll try the other once=
 more
>and see.
>
>Just so you all know, most of the applications I write are=
 relatively
>small. =A0 A couple hundred lines at most. =A0So my perspective for=
 using
>assembler isn't the same as some of you all that write several=
 hundred
>to a few thousand lines of code.
>
>Thanks to all for the discussion.
>
>
>Regards,
>
>Jim

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