On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 04:34:35 -0500, you wrote:

>On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:30:31 -0700 (PDT), John Chung wrote:
>> Yeah I can imagine trace history. Cool feature to have. Easier on
>> development. Still nothing bets well placed debugging logic :)
>
>There are plenty of circumstances there the application code can't tolerate
>*any* additional code for debugging or it simply won't work. This is where
>hardware emulators really shine.

And features like 'trigger out' when certain instructions get executed can save an awful lot of
debug time...

>
>> I try not to use a debugger for not being to dependent on such assortment
>> which might not exist on other development tools.
>
>Interesting, I find just the opposite. I rarely use a simulator, maybe once
>or twice a year for a given MPU family. Most (90% ?) of my debugging is
>with hardware hooked up to real world devices debugging those processes,
>not the hardware independent aspects of the software.

I have never used a simulator - most embedded projects are so dependent on outside stimulus which is
hard/time-consuming or impractical to simulate. 

>I currently develop with 6-8 different MCU families and will freely switch
>from one to another when it fits the project. When I'm looking at a new MCU
>family, the first thing I look at is whether it has a good C compiler,
>relatively non-intrusive on-chip debug facilities and a good IDE debugger
>(tightly coupled with the C compiler).
>
>As much as I like PICs, I think the available PIC tools are making a slow
>slide downward versus what's available for a lot of other chip families.
>The ICSP/ICD methods Microchip uses are getting a bit long in the tooth and
>I'm finding it harder and harder to work around some of their warts.

I'm surprised at this comment - I certainly agree  ICD can be somwhat primitive ( no WDT - er...
hello?), and being an early starter in the market, ICD is showing its age, but MPLAB ICE2000 is
streets ahead of most other offerings on similar-class micros - 'proper' ICEs like this are becoming
a rarity these days - Atmel seem to have abandoned their ICE range, although Debugwire/Jtag work
reasonably well as long as you use them with something less flaky than the dreadful AVR Studio.
Speed and packaging issues mean that we are probably seeing the end of 'real' ICEs, so the
limitation of on-chip debug systems will be an increasingly important factor.

>I doubt I'll ever go completely away from developing with PICs but they
>certainly aren't the easiest to develop with anymore and usually not my
>first choice, all things being equal.

All things being equal, I still tend towards PICs, for the sole reason that I have a proper ICE,
which can easily  save days of dev time, and MPLAB is solid and reliable. 

 

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