Hello, I just received my LaunchPad board and of course I joined this group. I'm a veteran software engineer with some hardware experience (physical circuit building, not just embedded or firmware coding) but I'm new to MSP430 development. What's the best development environment? Code Composer, IAR, MSPGCC, or Energia?

Here are my initial thoughts,

1. Code Composer has the needed device drivers and the MSP430ware doc set included. Not a big fan of Eclipse, but I've learned to live with it.
2. IAR, not sure why this would be preferable. Is the IDE better?
3. MSPGCC appears to be a command line toolset. Not sure why this would be preferable to Code Composer either, unless you're a die-hard CLI person. Isn't the GCC compiler included in Code Composer?
4. Energia looks very appealing to me because I'm also interested in Arduino. I understand the abstraction cost and I certainly have no qualms about dropping down to the assembly level as necessary, but it seems great for fast prototyping. Plus it has ready Mac support.

Is there a general consensus about this?

Phil Start a New Thread

Have a look at Rowley CrossWorks.

Leon Start a New Thread

Oh man you just opened a bag of vipers. When I did my msp430
development I used code composer and I did not have many problems. I
think there is a poll somewhere on the group forum that people took
which IDE they use.

Best Regards,
Jake G. Start a New Thread

emacs + GNU make. Learn it once, use it for life.

Regards,
Mark
markrages@gmail Start a New Thread

> > Is there a general consensus about this?
> >
> > Phil
> >

No, and probably never will be :)

> > 3. MSPGCC appears to be a command line toolset. Not
> > sure why this would be preferable to Code Composer either, unless
> > you're a die-hard CLI person. Isn't the GCC compiler included in
> > Code Composer?

I've used only MSPGCC and it has done everything I needed. You say it
is command line toolset, which is kinda true (mostly it's just a
compiler), but nothing stops you from using it with IDE like eclipse or
code::blocks and so on.

Cheers,
Asser L. Start a New Thread

Yikes! Snake charmer's currently not in my skill set. :-)

I searched the group messages for "best development environment" but didn't find anything really relevant. I'm sorry if I missed the message thread. If anyone knows of the link that would be great! An updated discussion might be valuable to Launchpad newbies like me.

Thanks for your Code Composer vote,

Phil Start a New Thread

I did visit the CrossWorks website. It's a commercial product, and its licensing terms are quite expensive. The commercial license is $1500. The individual license is $150 and it's only for hobbyist use. Start a New Thread

On 6 Feb 2013, at 21:22, "PFG" wrote:

> I did visit the CrossWorks website. It's a commercial product, and its licensing terms are quite expensive. The commercial license is $1500. The individual license is $150 and it's only for hobbyist use.

IAR Embedded Workbench is a commercial product. Code Composer is a commercial product. Both are limited in their "free of cost" versions. With a personal license for CrossWorks you have unlimited code space for $150; it costs more than that for Code Composer and Embedded Workbench if you want unlimited code space. So, if you can do stuff in 4K in IAR or 16K in CCS, you're sorted, otherwise you pay more than $150 to tool up.

Just saying. Start a New Thread

Emacs, huh? I'm a smidge partial to vi as far as Unix goes and Brief for DOS -- but in this century I try to minimize my command line usage. ;-)

Thanks though. So I take your answer to mean you prefer MSPGCC.
>
> emacs + GNU make. Learn it once, use it for life.
>
> Regards,
> Mark
> markrages@gmail
> Start a New Thread

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 2:50 PM, PFG wrote:
> Emacs, huh? I'm a smidge partial to vi as far as Unix goes and Brief for DOS -- but in this century I try to minimize my command line usage. ;-)
>
> Thanks though. So I take your answer to mean you prefer MSPGCC.
>

mspgcc works great for me. But every compiler vendor I've encountered
supplies a command line version. I've used emacs + make with the
PIC18 compiler for example.

I prefer the bash shell to most point and click interfaces. I also
order at restaurants by talking to the waitress, rather than pointing
at a menu. I guess you get your dinner either way.

Once you write the Makefile, you can't really consider emacs a
command-line system anymore.
--
Regards,
Mark
markrages@gmail Start a New Thread