Re: microcontroller programming -- how to begin

Pooh Bear wrote:

Ken Smith wrote:

In article <4479e421$0$4493$9b4e6d93@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Andreas Schwarz <usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On the contrary, most of the free 8051 stuff is very old
You mean tried and true, well proven don't you. Just because something
has been around for a while doesn't lower its value.

Hear hear !

and of limited
value,
A free macro assembler is very far from "of limited value".

whereas for AVR there is a free, actively developed C compiler
(AVR-GCC)
"actively developed" is a very strange turn of phrase. Do you mean that
they are still working on it (ie: trying to remove the bugs)

If an assembler / compiler works why does it need 'developing' ?

Graham


That certainly applies to some programs - one of the most popular terminal emulator programs on Windows is Tera Term Pro, which has not been updated since 1999. It does the job it was meant to do, and does it well.

An assembler also has little need for updating, but a compiler can always be improved. Whether it is worth doing or not is a different matter, of course, but no compiler ever generates truly optimal code, and can therefore be improved. It can also be extended to support newer language features. Finally, there is the library that comes with most toolchains, which can be further developed.

One of the nice things with gcc is that if you don't want to use the latest and greatest versions, you can always get hold of old versions, and use whichever version you prefer, on whatever platform you want.
.

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