IDE

[Roche]

Hi there,

I am sort of interested in what IDEs people are using: I've been following the Microchip tools from when they were DOS based, but MPlabX or whatever it is called just does not seem worth using - user hostile sort of springs to mind. I'm sure there are lots of great features in it, but they are so buried that the time to discover them would outweigh the benefits. I use mainly 18F series, writing in assembler. What worries me in the future is new devices not being supported under MPlab 8; I want to consider a contingency plan...

So who uses what IDE, and why?

[Tom Maier]

(mplabx) - user hostile sort of springs to mind.

Whenever you switch tools sets there is a frustration that things have moved and terminology has changed. That is the main reason that people hold on to the tools and chips they are familiar with until it becomes neccessary to change.

I hate having to learn new tool sets and chips also, but such is life.

I remember when I first tried mplabx and nothing was going right, and I had to go so far as to read the manual. I was pissed. Then I read "everything must start with creating a project", and then I got the hang of it.


I remember back in the '80's when I first encountered an "ide" ("turbo pascal"), and that was a frustrating experience, also. I thought it was a useless, annoying blob of software until I found that it could make the complicated make file for me. Still, I feel more in control of my process with the old command line tools. So it's a trade-off, you give up the seat-of-the-pants control and have to let the automated software do stuff for you. It becomes frustrating when you know what it should be doing, but refuses to do it.

I think your description "user hostile" would be better described as "has taken my feeling of control away".

[vloki]

So who uses what IDE, and why?

I use MPLABX (C projects mostly) and there is more that I like than things I miss.
(One thing that I miss are multiple tabs for debug watches)

I think I started playing with X when it was kind of confidential because I heard somewhere about it
and searched the net for a download.
Even the first *pre*releases have been very unstable I liked them and hoped from the beginning
that it will become a stable system once. It took more time than expected

I have to admit that since I'm in the ivory tower of a university it is not that critical for me to waste some time
on new buggy software

[jtemples]

(One thing that I miss are multiple tabs for debug watches)

Tools...Options...Embedded...Generic Settings...Enable alternate watch list views

[Roche]

I was really meaning, in the OP, to find out about alternatives to the Microchip tools...

[vloki]

(One thing that I miss are multiple tabs for debug watches)

Tools...Options...Embedded...Generic Settings...Enable alternate watch list views

Thank you John !

I totally missed that. Do you know in which version this has been introduced ?

[jtemples]

Sorry, I don't know. I only recently found out about it.