Thanks for all the replies. Actually my goal is really modest.
Something like Mark Rages' command line PICKit 1 utility or
Wouter's XWisp is my "ultimate" goal. Maybe my goal is much
lower than that depending on my progress.

I know almost nothing about host programming. I also do not
want to deal with GUI. I say Visual C/C++ is difficult because
I was overwhelmed by MFC. VB looks easier and I have lots of
examples written in VB. But still I consider it not so easy.
Delphi may be no more difficult than VB but there are less 
examples and people around me only uses VB/VC/Java. So I think 
Delphi is not an option for me. Maybe I will look into it later
as well as VC. For now I will stick with Python/GCC/VB. 

Now the next question is the examples of serial/USB communication
for Python and plain GCC on Windows and Linux. Any good
introductory web sites?

Regards,
Xiaofan

-----Original Message-----
From: Gerhard Fiedler [mailto:lists@connectionbrazil.com]
Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2005 2:05 AM
To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
Subject: Re: [EE] Host interface software programming language


Chen Xiao Fan wrote:

> The problem is that I am not willing to learn another language (object
> pascal) and to me they are in the same league of Visual C/C++ which I
> feel more difficult than plain C or Python or VB.

You may want to have a second look at it. It doesn't seem to me that the 
Object Pascal/Delphi dialects are more difficult to learn than Python. (I 
don't use them since I moved on from Turbo-Pascal

You didn't say whether you wanted GUI access or whether command line is 
good enough. Programming Windows GUI applications in C is definitely more 
complex than any of the other choices. The issue with this is not so much 
the language. This is something you usually can learn rather quickly, at 
least the basics that get you going, for any of the suggested languages.
...
Gerhard
...
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist