CCS vs MPLAB

[khtang]

I have been using CCS compiler since day 1, but I now find that Microchip's MPLAB is a much better choice, for compatibility reason. CCS compiler lack of supports for newer chips, and the upgrade is slow.

Besides, the support from CCS is also dissapointing. I sent them several questions, pointed out several bugs, but received only a couple responses, with less helpful answers. Comparatively, Microchip is far better and responsive.

Also, the sample source codes provided by Microchip are more than CCS.

These are my findings, any comments?

[MicroManiac]

You're right,
Regarding their support, they are slow and not very helpful. Plus Microchip is much faster in updates since they are the designers, and even their full releases shows Beta features
But the CCS is more user friendly that is its only advantage.
_________________
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."
Albert Einstein

[Rohit de Sa]

MPLAB is a wonderful piece of software; the IDE is clean, and customizable to a great degree. It has excellent tool support, and is very helpful during code development.

However, you can't beat the ease of use CCS provides. 10 minutes in MPLAB ASM, versus 5 minutes in CCS for many quick and dirty implementations of code - I can testify to this.

So what do I do? Use the CCS plugin for MPLAB. It gives me the best of both worlds. A superb IDE, and an excellent compiler! I very frequently embed ASM in my C code, whenever I need to do really time critical stuff (software PWM, for example). (Technically, you don't need to touch ASM code if use utilize the correct C instructions)

One strange thing is that MPLAB doesn't correctly display RAM consumption (in the 'Memory utilization' tool window; it appears correctly in the output window). I suppose the reason for this is that C uses a variable number of RAM locations, and this would be difficult to depict graphically.

Rohit

[Neddie]

Personally I think the Mplab ide is truly dreadful. After using Codewarrior for the Freescale processors, it's painful to go back. Having the Debugger built in is a very nice though!!

[bkamen]

I also use PCWHD with MPLAB as the "commandline" compiler.

I've used Microchip's compiler and it's a lot of work. I like CCS. All compilers have their issues.

-Ben
_________________
Dazed and confused? I don't think so. Just "plain lost" will do. :D