Version 4 Comments

Guest · Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 6:49 pm

Hey Darren Rooky

Why do you use your customers to test your compiler. Don't you guys have any class or professional pride?

I guess not. Keep up the bad work, you're showing your true spirit.

Martin Berriman · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Posts: 66 Location: UK

Hey! - A complete topic has disappeared. Does this apparent censorship happen often? The topic in question was about the linker in version 4 and I linked to it in a comment above which I have included below:

arunb · Joined: 08 Sep 2003 Posts: 492 Location: India

Hi,

Is SourceBoost a better alternative to CCS ?? (weblink : [url] http://www.sourceboost.com/)[/url]

The SourceBoost Pro version supports 16F and 18F series, but what about the performance and support regarding code development ?? I mean there are so many CCS users that you always get someone to help you with problems.

But I am not sure wether SourceBoost has the same popularity .....

thanks
arunb

CCS · Joined: 31 Oct 2005 Posts: 8

PCM programmer · Joined: 06 Sep 2003 Posts: 21708

mcafzap · Joined: 07 Sep 2003 Posts: 46 Location: Manchester, UK

This smacks of censorship which I find most objectionable. You may remove this message as you choose. In any event I will not be purchasing your wonderful new version for some considerable time, if ever.

PCM programmer · Joined: 06 Sep 2003 Posts: 21708

I don't think any censorship took place. The thread is still there.

The 2nd thing is, it's one thing to complain about a problem. Just state
the problem, inform other people of it, contact CCS support, hope that
it's fixed, etc. It's another thing to basically abuse the good will of
the manufacturer who provides the forum, to rag on and on, endlessly,
in whining posts, day after day about the same topic.

I mean, if the compiler doesn't suit you, then go to Sourceboost.
Or go to Hi-Tech. A certain type of person will only be comfortable
with the Hi-Tech compiler or the C18 compiler. It's pointless to sit
and whine about CCS, if your personality is really a match with another
compiler.

Dinesh · Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 22 Location: UK

This is an excellent forum with wealth of experience and information.
Users or beta testers need to know the state of problems and more to the point workarounds bugs/limitations.
I am using V4.xxx in my current project and had/continue to have good and bad experience like many of you.
RTOS works great for me along with interrupt driven serial communication. I had bad experience with pointers/arguments at times … but on debugging software, you just have to use alternate methods that the compiler allows.

My clients don’t want to know my problems. They just want deliverables. Delays are costly.

Documentations of limitations/fixes should be shipped with every new release. That way I feel my subscription is worth something. One liner like “More IDE issues have been delt with” is fine for general web publication but it doesn’t provide any me with any information.

The IDE/Complier is work in progress. I don’t like the wasteful use of menus and it doesn’t really affect my work but I still prefer it to the old. The old IDE allowed better printing of source code. The V4.xxx will only allow portrait regardless of selection. I can’t use my printer to print landscape in duplex with ‘Flip Pages Up’ option so that bounded print opens to be effective A3 page.
Editing code with condense/expand feature has been very helpful. It would be even better if ‘intellisense’ is implemented.

Ideal would be an inclusion of a test source code to verify every aspect complier/linker operation. This could be based on rich PIC like 18F6722 prototype board/s that checks all aspects of the IDE/Complier/Linker i.e. CCS c implementation. This can then be the test bench to identify what is working or not working after any release and bug feedback from those of us willing to carry out tests would be quicker.
_________________
W2k sp4 512MB (Motherboard:ASUS A7S8X)

Martin Berriman · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Posts: 66 Location: UK

Konrad · Joined: 15 Sep 2003 Posts: 34

I bought a years maintenance in anticipation of DSPic support.
I have been a user of v3 since it was released. I knew that when v4 was released, the compiler may be 6 months before being stable. I have been suprised however at the number of problems with v4 even before they try to support the much more complex 24, 30 and 33 devices.

As a straight forwad compiler, v4 compares favourably with v3.

BUT CCS have sold v4, including the IDE way before it is ready.

I used to use th CCS IDE, especially the debugger, in conjunction with MPLAB, but as MPLAB has improved version by version, I now rarely use CCS.

Of the critisism here I hear little mention of the ICD. The real selling point of their own IDE should be more integrated debugging. The ICD functionality has varied drastically with each release of v4. In the previous issue v022 it was completely broken, but is now fixed in version v023.

OK the IDE may not be the most important aspect of a compiler BUT it costs exra.

kender · Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Posts: 768 Location: Silicon Valley

PCM programmer · Joined: 06 Sep 2003 Posts: 21708

I noticed CCS just came out with a new version:

Ttelmah · Guest

The newest versions of V4, at last seem to have addressmod working!. Tried a couple of tests, and it seems to operate both for read and write.

Best Wishes

PCM programmer · Joined: 06 Sep 2003 Posts: 21708

Have you been able to get 'rom' pointers to work ? I tried testing it
for a few minutes and couldn't get it to work. I just got blank strings
displayed. It doesn't look like the proper ASM code is generated.

Then I tried to get the 'PASS_STRINGS=IN_RAM' feature to work.
I tried to print out the contents of a two dimensional array of text
strings. But it doesn't work properly if the array index is a variable.
Of course, that's how you'd want to use it. It truncates the strings
to only 6 characters and puts a 'black rectangle' character at the end.
So I gave up on that. This was with PCH vs. 4.024, and CCS4 mode
enabled.

Ttelmah · Guest