[A bunch of collected responses.]

> It is stable and fast, why change if not necessary. (Honestly, most =20
> of the time, higher releases doesn't seem to getting better.)

If you don't change, people complain too.  I certainly cringe every =20
time I use something with a W95-style interface (doesn't support =20
obviously good idea like a per-user "Documents" folder, for one =20
example), and I just laugh at those PCB tools that "you can still run =20
in a DOS window, and it's free."  Fast and stable, maybe.  Ugly, =20
painful, and embarrassing too, if you're claiming to be a "leading =20
vendor" in any area.
(I remember being very happy when Cadsoft released their X-windows =20
based EAGLE for Macs.  I thought it was a great compromise.  But I had =20
cause to fire it up again a little while ago and was ... shocked.)

Besides, time passes you by.  Microchip probably looked at what it was =20
going to take to make the old MPLAB work "well" on new platforms (Mac, =20
Linux, even just Windows 7, anything 64bit, anything multicore), threw =20
up their hands and said "we are not in the business of chasing the =20
latest GUI fad to come out of cupertino or redmond or wherever.  We =20
want to write compilers and simulators and tools that enhance our core =20
microcontroller business.  Give us a framework where we can do that =20
and let someone else
worry about the exact appearance of semi-transparent 3-d buttons and =20
all that crap!"
(what language is the old MPLAB written in, anyway?


> But hopefully not as painfully slowly as other Java based IDEs I =20
> have abandoned using...

Eh.  Buy a faster computer.  It's small change, these days.


> I would have to think hard about putting up with it over AVR dev =20
> tools.

Haven't I heard that AVRStudio is going away in favor of something =20
Eclipse based as well?
(or maybe that was just the WINAVR package...)


> Surely it would have made more sense to build a plug-in to Eclipse

Eclipse has all the same java-related complaints, doesn't it?
They should have done an emacs extension!


> change *is* bad, just that sometimes not changing things is worse.

Or perhaps change is good, but not changing would have been better :-)
More realistically (as per first paragraphs), change is inevitable and =20
necessary, and how well you manage it means the difference in the =20
number of happy customers.


> I've seen few Java applications that don't run at 1/100th the speed of
> their previous (non Java) version.

Such as?  What apps have converted to java without also adding a bunch =20
of other stuff?
Don't some java apps end up natively compiled?


> Developers (for anything other than Apple products) that buy a Mac
> mysteriously seem to run Linux. Seems an expensive way to run Linux, =20
> but
> I suppose stylish.

Nonsense.  Developers with Macs drop down into a unix shell and run =20
linux apps that have been natively compiled for the MacOSX linux-like =20
underlayer, which usually works.  They can run linux apps, and it may =20
look like linux, but it's not.

>
> For example, an Android app doesn't even have a "main" method!

OMG it's an Arudino!  :-)

BillW


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