On 10/19/07, Matt Pobursky <piclist@mps-design.com> wrote:
> I think with the PIC it's very difficult to write a good C compiler since
> it has no real software stack, a limited hardware stack and constant tables
> are somewhat problematic. The tool vendors use different tricks and methods
> to optimize the code generation and that makes debugging difficult and
> fairly compiler specific. It seems that all the plugins for MPLAB are
> pretty generic and not very tightly coupled with the compiler. Whether this
> is the tool vendors fault or MPLAB's I don't know.
>
> I contrast that to the tools available for the MSP430. They are virtually
> all excellent, all produce decent code and most of them are very
> affordable. It's just a much easier architecture to write a C compiler and
> debugger for.
>

I found TI MCUs are good but they do not offer enough mix of
chips. MSP430 is nice but of limited use IMHO. And I would not
say that their documentation is good.

Maybe dsPICs/PIC24 change the situation for Microchip. MPLAB C30
(based on GCC) is said to be rpetty decent.

Xiaofan
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