Personally I do find plenty of drawbacks for all the
debuggers. This occurs across all the platforms. Each
time when I use a new architecture I bang my wallet on
the desk as I need to buy new equipment. Sigh the
dilemma of a developer.... Why oh why?! I think Serial
bootloader HELPS a lot when I evaluate the
architecture.

John

--- Xiaofan Chen <xiaofanc@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 10/23/06, Herbert Graf <mailinglist3@farcite.net>
> wrote:
> 
> > Even without any watch windows, since stepping
> will be relatively slow
> > with the ICD2, regardless of what PIC you are
> using.
> >
> > That said, the solution is simple: don't single
> step. I have rarely
> > needed to extensively single step any of my code.
> Yes, from time to
> > time, when I've narrowed down the location of a
> problem I will single
> > step a few lines, but that's about it. Breakpoints
> are MUCH more
> > effective at narrowing down where a problem comes
> from, ignoring the
> > speed advantage.
> >
> > In fact, when dealing with an HLL I'd recommend
> you never single step.
> > Simply set the breakpoint at the next line. The
> result will be MUCH
> > faster operation since the PIC will be allowed to
> run whatever it needs
> > to to get to that line.
> 
> Thanks a lot for the insight and recommendations.
> Still we have to
> admit that ICD2 is slow. I used ICE2000 before and
> stepping
> through Hitech PICC code did not show any slowness.
> 
> > > Maybe I am biased but I never think ICD2 is a
> good debugger.
> >
> > Of the debuggers I've used (which I admit isn't
> that extensive) the ICD2
> > is an excellent value for the money. It's not
> perfect. It has quite a
> > few limitations. And it can be cranky (more so
> because of the crap
> > Windows does sometimes then the actual hardware).
> But once you know how
> > to PROPERLY use it, the ICD2 is a VERY effective
> tool, and WELL worth
> > the money. Of the debuggers I have used, it has
> had the steepest
> > learning curve (because of the quirks) but is the
> most effective.
> 
> I agree that ICD2 is WELL WORTH the money and I have
> used it in
> place of ICE2000 for Flash PIC16Fs since the
> processor modules are
> relatively expensive and ICD2 is okay with PIC16F.
> 
> > Personally, out of all the dev tools I've used,
> for chips varying from
> > CPLDs, to FPGAs, to MCUs, the ICD2 has been the
> most useful to me.
> >
> 
> That is an very interesting conclusion. I have not
> used many debugging
> tools (ICE2000, JTAG for MSP430, MSP470/LPC ARM,
> JTAG for
> Silabs C8051Fxxx, ICD2) but ICD2 is certainly the
> worst among them.
> 
> Anyway, it seems that Microchip is putting JTAG in
> PIC24/dsPIC33.
> Hopefully Real-ICE is more than a souped-up ICD2.
> And they might
> come out with new JTAG debugging tools for those
> chips supporting
> JTAG.
> 
> Xiaofan
> -- 
> http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
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> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
> 


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