> > This was an interesting discussion. Let me add a thought 
> here... This 
> > about someone starting a hobby, right? When you're starting with 
> > electronics, you need to buy some tools and you don't have 
> a junk box 
> > yet, so  most of the parts you'll need you have to buy, too.
> 
> 
> Right, I was thinking along the same lines.
> 
> Are you going to use a "no-parts"/"no-cost"
> soldering-iron also ?? If not, why is it that the
> *programmer* has to be of that kind ?
> 
> There are very few hobbies at all that are "no-cost"...

All true. But that misses the point, which is hard to see if you aren't a
"hacker." (in the true sense of the word)

I have a t-shirt that shows the view over a set of motorcycle handlebars and
it says "if you don't ride, you wouldn't get it." I guess this is the same
sort of thing. There is a joy in understanding something from the very
bottom to the top. A rush in being able to mentally zoom from the level of
electrons, through simple electricity, through logic gates, through signal
timing, through serial data streams, through programming commands to the
PIC, through the data being loaded into the PIC, through the PIC running the
code, all the way up to the physical level of watching the LED blink to
indicate that your code is running. It is like this video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5555313278261147278 An excellent
documentary about powers of 10 and the true scale of the universe. Well
worth the 8 minutes or so.

With an application program on the PC, mac, PDA, whatever, part of that zoom
is broken. I guess if the software is open source and well documented... But
it is better if only the minimum programming commands are included and the
simplest change from the original HEX file to the data sent to the
programmer. It is best if you can see how the datastream being sent to the
programmer is actually assembled.

And this is only from my point of view, and maybe from the viewpoint of most
"hackers" (in the true sense of the word) so yes, I understand it doesn't
make sense to most people.

---
James.
 

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