Joe Bento wrote:
> is there any advantage to learning assembler first?

Yes.  That way you'll actually know what you're doing.

You don't have a operating system and multiple levels of software
abstraction on a PIC since that would take way too many resources.  As a
result, hardware dependencies and direct control of the hardware is going to
get into your code.  If you're not familiar with the peripherals and how the
PIC really works, you're going to waste a lot of time staring at strange
symptoms without much chance of figuring out what's going on.

Doing a little assembler first forces you to learn these low level details
that the compiler tries to hide from you, but that you will inevitably bump
into anyway.

> I'm currently concentrating on the 10/12/16 PICs since I have a small
> collection of several devices.

While I know it's possible, I really wouldn't want a compiler between me and
a 12 bit core PIC for any real project.


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