AVR-Chat

I am surprised by the level of venom regarding the BASCOM support.  The
complaints sound oddly self-referential...  I must admit, however, I rarely
use the support forum since I found BASCOM so easy to use.  The only time it
got a little difficult was trying to write my own library support for an SPI
LCD interface - there is no documentation other than other library source
files...  I ended up talking with the developer of BASCOM to get what I
needed.

Anyway, I still maintain that BASCOM is a great way to get started as it is
entirely self contained, reasonably efficient and has lots of pre-built
hardware support libraries.

I do 95% or more of my work with avr-gcc.  I use BASCOM strictly for
teaching and getting newcomers started.  Having a completely useful compiler
for free doesn't hurt either.  

I can't imagine doing a large multi-file/task project in Basic, but there
are plenty of engineers out there that do.  If you have a large chip and
modest requirements you can bang out a tremendous amount of functionality
with little prior experience using BASCOM.  That is why there exist markets
for Basic Stamps, PICAXE and other PIC based "easy to use" processors.  It
is just that BASCOM is way cheaper and way faster than the heavily marketed
alternatives.

Cheers!

-----------
Larry Barello
www.barello.net


| -----Original Message-----
| From: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com [mailto:AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
| Of Thomas Keller
| Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2005 9:34 AM
| To: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com
| Subject: Re: [AVR-Chat] Re: (OT) PICAXE
| 
| On Sun, 2005-10-02 at 03:04 +0200, Ralph Hilton wrote:
| > On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 19:40:38 -0500 you wrote:
| > >On Mon, 2005-09-19 at 20:07 -0700, Larry Barello wrote:
| > >> Given that this is an AVR forum, not a PIC one, let me plug a
| > product
| > >> that I have found very useful:  BASCOM.  A free 4k limit compiler
| > is available and supports most AVR chips.
| > >  Only problem is I have never succeeded in getting anything to
| > >compile in BASCM-AVR.   Has some strange syntactical requirements for
| > >declaring variables, apparently.
| > I did contemplate Bascom when I started with AVRs. For me the quality,
| > friendliness and helpfulness of support was important. I joined a few
| > lists. I found the Bascom list unfriendly and somewhat dominated by
| > characters I found distasteful.
| 
|   AMEN to that!  The BASCOM-AVR channel appears, like so many of the IRC
| technical support chasnnles, to be primarily populated by teeneaged
| dopes who seem to think that anyone who doesn't unbderstand what THEY
| (think) they understand is a complete moron and a worthless individual.
| 
| >  In contrast the CVAVR list was friendly, helpful and supportive. The
| > ICCAVR list also seemed to be a helpful place. I haven't found Basic
| > to be a particularly versatile language and avoid it whenever
| > possible. As things stand I don't see an alternative to C/C++ . If
| > there were a decent and inexpensive Forth compiler available I would
| > probably have gone for that as I love screwing up my brain cells with
| > RPN and still use my antique and beloved HP11C and HP16C
| > calculators.
| 
|   *ACK* RPN!  I got more than enough experience with RPN when writing
| compilers.  It isn't natural.   *grin*  (RPN ::=  Rarely Natural
| Notation)
| 
|    Seriously, I am a fan of C (though not so much of C++, at least, not
| for embedded code).  I have to confess to a liking for assembler for
| embedded projects, but I suspect that is more because I enjoy bit
| twiddling and getting down and dirty with the hardware, than anything
| else.  *grin*
| 
| tom
| 
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