AVR-Chat

I used to use Ultra-edit and makefiles with avr-gcc and jtag debugging
(early days I used an ICE200).  I recently completed a project using
DebugWire and it went pretty well.  Certainly in the pecking order of
debuggers and ICE is better than JTAG is better than DebugWire, but debug
wire was pretty close once I got a handle on how it worked.

Recently I switched to using Microsoft Visual Studio.  I happen to have a
copy for another project.  Again, it works well with makefile avr-gcc so I
essentially upgraded my development environment (Microsoft visual studio is
a very powerful editor...)

Also, I tried the latest avr-gcc (actually, one back) with the latest studio
and like Mark says, below, it integrates very well.  Actually, I was a bit
shocked: In the past studio has been pretty rough.  If it were not for
Visual Studio I would switch to Studio for my development work just so it
was integrated (visual studio is very nice, did I mention that?).  Studio
created the appropriate Makefile and built and debugged my simple test
application (two files, some test code) with no fooling around: It just did
it.

As for code quality, the last time I did a direct comparison (ICC, CV, IAR
and GCC) GCC was very close to IAR (the best) and ICC & CV were distant
thirds (about three or four years ago).  Of course benchmarks are funny
things.  I just compiled *my* code for those results.  I tend to write lots
of pointer based stuff and I have become pretty good at abstracting my code.
IAR was something like 5-10% smaller with compiled code, but their libraries
were much fatter and they had a lot of function call overhead that was
"hidden" so in the end my actual application was a few bytes smaller with
GCC than IAR.  The tipping point, for me, was (of course money) the blazing
fast, ultra compact floating point library for gcc.

The latest code generators for GCC are something to behold.  GCC still has
holes & weaknesses, but if you periodically inspect the resulting assembly
in critical code you can learn to avoid the problem areas.  For general
code: who cares as long as your project works and you get it done fast?

-----Original Message-----
From: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com [mailto:AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Mark Nowell
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 2:20 AM
To: AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [AVR-Chat] I Need A Compiler

<Lurk Off!>
I'd echo what David says. AVR-Gcc is very good, and its integration with 
AVR-Studio I find works extremely well for me. I use the STK500, 
JtagICE-Mk2, AVR-Studio and gcc or asm for my AVR development and I 
consider this an excellent and extremely cheap combination. (Oh and 
someone here recommended a CleverScope, which has also changed my life!).

FWIW I have a couple of boards that use the Mega168/88 and I've recently 
decided to do all development with the M32 and probably modify my boards 
to use it. I don't use the extra code or I/O (yet) but Jtag development 
is superb, and DebugWire is not.

Mark
</Lurk On>



David Kelly wrote:
>
>
> Yeah, all I've heard is hyperbole. Avr-gcc is very good. What it is not
> is an integrated IDE, nor a hand-holding Visual Studio-like collection
> of pre-written libraries.
>
> I looked into IAR and CV a couple of years ago and spent the next 9
> months *very* pleased with avr-gcc.
>   


 
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