> Correct. The xxIF flags will always be set. You could, if you
> want, have GIE "disabled" all the time, and poll the xxIF bits
> instead (but I'm not sure why :-) ).

I've needed to do that a few times, for example during comms
and display driving, ie interacting with other devices. Often the
PIC is and needs to be committed to one task and interrupt flags
are polled when time permits. Obviously this depends on where
the interrupts come from and their importance time-wise. One
app required reading quadrature encoders, two gyros, an LCD
and a lot of maths. Satellite PICs were used as encoder processors,
not a GIE in sight, and the whole thing ran very smoothly, which I
don't think would have been as easy to do with so many grabby
and frequent interrupts enabled

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