PIC18 development

That’s something I wanted to do for quite a long time now : Creating some programs for PIC chips. I bougth the ICD3 programmer/debugger with the PICDEM Z development kit (for ZigBee communication). I can’t say it was chip (it costed me 500 €), but I’ve made a good use of it. The thing is, it brings me back to my first C programs. It’s quite hard to come back to some unmanaged, memory limited, namespace less language. I thought the lack of objects would be the hardest part, but in fact it’s not (you can easily emulate it). The hardest part is the lack of namespace and the massive use of #define, I really would be happier with a some sort of limited version of C++. The MPLAB development environment is awful (compared to Visual Studio): no reindenting, no refactoring, no smart-anything. This is WILD for me. It’s like being a citizen in the jungle. ...

October 30, 2009 · Florent Clairambault