IDE for begineers does not help them understand most
of the options that the compiler has. For example asm
listing and map listing. Which happens to be important
for MCU development. Insulation from such details are
just a hinderance. Once they understood the compiler's
capability then IDE should be of their own choice.

John


--- Mark Rages <markrages@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 6/26/07, William Chops Westfield <westfw@mac.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > On Jun 26, 2007, at 4:15 PM, Mark Rages wrote:
> >
> > > For someone just beginning, I'd recommend
> considering a
> > > microcontroller with GCC support.  This may not
> be a PIC.
> > >
> > gcc doesn't exactly come with a beginner-class
> IDE, does it?
> > (Possibly excepting "Arduino")  For someone just
> beginning,
> > maybe a set of CLI-based tools aren't the best
> idea?  (OTOH,
> > if they're going to do embedded programming,
> "leaving the GUI
> > nest"  might be a good thing.)
> >
> 
> It doesn't get much simpler than the command-line
> for compiling simple
> programs.  You only have to deal with one thing at a
> time:  Editing,
> compiling, programming the chip.  No obscure
> configuration screens, no
> magic.  You can easily get help from the Internet by
> cut+pasting the
> commands you are using (and errors you generate). 
> Bigger programs can
> be more complex, but by then you'll hopefully have
> learned about make.
> 
> Anyway, the compiler and IDE are separate programs
> in any sane
> environment, so I'm not sure how choosing GCC makes
> a difference in
> the IDE.
> 
> Regards,
> Mark
> markrages@gmail
> -- 
> Mark Rages, Engineer
> Midwest Telecine LLC
> markrages@midwesttelecine.com
> -- 
> http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
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> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
> 



       
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