Paul, I don't even think code density is the issue, although I know this
was somewhat tongue in cheek. From my perspectives as an almost total
neutral, since I don't use a compiler, comes down to support, and
certainly when you take the ratio of support:cost IAR show up badly here
Al
Good Compiler for the MSP430
Started by ●February 13, 2004
Reply by ●March 3, 20042004-03-03
Reply by ●March 3, 20042004-03-03
Let's get to actual names now ;-)
> > Same old thing really -you get what you pay for. Just last week I saw
> > the IAR 2.xx compiler squeezing code into a 60K part ...ready for a
> > production run of over 1 million units in an FDD conforming medical
> > product.
>
> Hmm. Ok, so why did IAR pull the MSP430 benchmarks from their site,
> then, when comparing the IAR compiler to the competition? Perhaps
> somebody actually produced smaller code? We'll never know... :-)
My main project, especially when using floats certainly demonstrated faster
and smaller code than IAR's on the Rowley Associates CrossWorks toolchain.
I think by now the consensus is that RAL provides a superior tool at a much
lower price...
-- Kris
> > Same old thing really -you get what you pay for. Just last week I saw
> > the IAR 2.xx compiler squeezing code into a 60K part ...ready for a
> > production run of over 1 million units in an FDD conforming medical
> > product.
>
> Hmm. Ok, so why did IAR pull the MSP430 benchmarks from their site,
> then, when comparing the IAR compiler to the competition? Perhaps
> somebody actually produced smaller code? We'll never know... :-)
My main project, especially when using floats certainly demonstrated faster
and smaller code than IAR's on the Rowley Associates CrossWorks toolchain.
I think by now the consensus is that RAL provides a superior tool at a much
lower price...
-- Kris
Reply by ●March 3, 20042004-03-03
Paul Curtis wrote:
>> Someone Else (not Paul) wrote:
>>If you are making 2 widgets in a shed then maybe even I would look at
>>a $199 compiler
>
>
> This assumes that price confers quality. Unfortunately, it does not.
> Should I expect your $1800+ compiler to produces 10x the code density of
> Richard'$199-ish MSP430 compiler, then?
I come to the from the perspective of having used IAR compilers for
several projects (HC12 and HC11), ImageCraft for 430f149 and playing
with demos of CrossWorks for Linux for the 430.
If you compare features/quality to price then ImageCraft's $199 compiler
comes in at the top by a long shot. CrossWorks (from the little I have
used it) is also very well priced. If I were selling the IAR compiler I
wouldn't charge $10 for it.
Just from a service perspective these 2 companies excel in customer
support and participation with users. I've had new releases with
bugfixes from Richard within hours of reporting them. Try that with your
expensive compiler (and no, a higher price does not mean it is bug free).
Brian
--
-----------------
Brian C. Lane (W7BCL) Programmer
www.shinemicro.com RF, DSP & Microcontroller Design
>> Someone Else (not Paul) wrote:
>>If you are making 2 widgets in a shed then maybe even I would look at
>>a $199 compiler
>
>
> This assumes that price confers quality. Unfortunately, it does not.
> Should I expect your $1800+ compiler to produces 10x the code density of
> Richard'$199-ish MSP430 compiler, then?
I come to the from the perspective of having used IAR compilers for
several projects (HC12 and HC11), ImageCraft for 430f149 and playing
with demos of CrossWorks for Linux for the 430.
If you compare features/quality to price then ImageCraft's $199 compiler
comes in at the top by a long shot. CrossWorks (from the little I have
used it) is also very well priced. If I were selling the IAR compiler I
wouldn't charge $10 for it.
Just from a service perspective these 2 companies excel in customer
support and participation with users. I've had new releases with
bugfixes from Richard within hours of reporting them. Try that with your
expensive compiler (and no, a higher price does not mean it is bug free).
Brian
--
-----------------
Brian C. Lane (W7BCL) Programmer
www.shinemicro.com RF, DSP & Microcontroller Design
Reply by ●March 3, 20042004-03-03
Hi Al,
> Paul, I don't even think code density is the issue, although
> I know this
> was somewhat tongue in cheek. From my perspectives as an almost total
> neutral, since I don't use a compiler, comes down to support, and
> certainly when you take the ratio of support:cost IAR show up
> badly here
I wouldn't want to put IAR in a bad light here; I've never used IAR
support (even though I have an IAR product) so am not qualified to say.
There are proper channels to go through for IAR support, so would assume
that not much IAR support is required on this Y! group. Just an
opinion. Most of our support is off-forum.
Regards,
--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk
CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, and (soon) Atmel AVR processors
> Paul, I don't even think code density is the issue, although
> I know this
> was somewhat tongue in cheek. From my perspectives as an almost total
> neutral, since I don't use a compiler, comes down to support, and
> certainly when you take the ratio of support:cost IAR show up
> badly here
I wouldn't want to put IAR in a bad light here; I've never used IAR
support (even though I have an IAR product) so am not qualified to say.
There are proper channels to go through for IAR support, so would assume
that not much IAR support is required on this Y! group. Just an
opinion. Most of our support is off-forum.
Regards,
--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk
CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, and (soon) Atmel AVR processors
Reply by ●March 3, 20042004-03-03
> Paul Curtis wrote:
>
> >> Someone Else (not Paul) wrote:
> >>If you are making 2 widgets in a shed then maybe even I would look at
> >>a $199 compiler
> >
> >
> > This assumes that price confers quality. Unfortunately, it does not.
> > Should I expect your $1800+ compiler to produces 10x the code density of
> > Richard'$199-ish MSP430 compiler, then?
Brian wrote :
[SNIP]
> If you compare features/quality to price then ImageCraft's $199 compiler
> comes in at the top by a long shot. CrossWorks (from the little I have
> used it) is also very well priced. If I were selling the IAR compiler I
> wouldn't charge $10 for it.
>
> Just from a service perspective these 2 companies excel in customer
> support and participation with users. I've had new releases with
> bugfixes from Richard within hours of reporting them. Try that with your
> expensive compiler (and no, a higher price does not mean it is bug free).
>
> Brian
Well, let's simply put that to the test, shall we ?
Normally I ___never___ discuss bugs on a group, but this seems a good example
for Jason at IAR UK to tell us what it's all about.
I am also curious what happened in the meantime with V1.26B, which IAR told me
they expected many developers to still use.
On the URL I can't tell what happened to V1.26B, it only states that the current
version is 2.21B-2 .
I reported a Code Generator bug on 25 July 2003 to IAR (I checked in my log), and it was
confirmed by IAR as such.
At that time the following erroneous code was present in both V1.26B and on V2.10B :
The toupper() function incorrectly double-increments its argument, when a post-
increment is used, this was my line of code :
foo = toupper ( comm_rx[index++] ) - 'A';
After executing this line "index" is incremented twice, which is wrong.
Toupper() is implemented as a Macro, and this occurs with or without optimisations.
Forcing a function call, or disabling the macro works around it.
It is now almost 8 months later, and I'm curious if this has been fixed on V1.26B onwards.
I do also recall that V1.26A introduced a stackframe bug, and I think we waited 6 or 7 months
to have a fix in V1.26B .......
Maybe Jason Moore at IAR UK can substantiate what happened there in the interim, since
he doesn't use $199 "shed compiler tools".
Best regards,
Kris
>
> >> Someone Else (not Paul) wrote:
> >>If you are making 2 widgets in a shed then maybe even I would look at
> >>a $199 compiler
> >
> >
> > This assumes that price confers quality. Unfortunately, it does not.
> > Should I expect your $1800+ compiler to produces 10x the code density of
> > Richard'$199-ish MSP430 compiler, then?
Brian wrote :
[SNIP]
> If you compare features/quality to price then ImageCraft's $199 compiler
> comes in at the top by a long shot. CrossWorks (from the little I have
> used it) is also very well priced. If I were selling the IAR compiler I
> wouldn't charge $10 for it.
>
> Just from a service perspective these 2 companies excel in customer
> support and participation with users. I've had new releases with
> bugfixes from Richard within hours of reporting them. Try that with your
> expensive compiler (and no, a higher price does not mean it is bug free).
>
> Brian
Well, let's simply put that to the test, shall we ?
Normally I ___never___ discuss bugs on a group, but this seems a good example
for Jason at IAR UK to tell us what it's all about.
I am also curious what happened in the meantime with V1.26B, which IAR told me
they expected many developers to still use.
On the URL I can't tell what happened to V1.26B, it only states that the current
version is 2.21B-2 .
I reported a Code Generator bug on 25 July 2003 to IAR (I checked in my log), and it was
confirmed by IAR as such.
At that time the following erroneous code was present in both V1.26B and on V2.10B :
The toupper() function incorrectly double-increments its argument, when a post-
increment is used, this was my line of code :
foo = toupper ( comm_rx[index++] ) - 'A';
After executing this line "index" is incremented twice, which is wrong.
Toupper() is implemented as a Macro, and this occurs with or without optimisations.
Forcing a function call, or disabling the macro works around it.
It is now almost 8 months later, and I'm curious if this has been fixed on V1.26B onwards.
I do also recall that V1.26A introduced a stackframe bug, and I think we waited 6 or 7 months
to have a fix in V1.26B .......
Maybe Jason Moore at IAR UK can substantiate what happened there in the interim, since
he doesn't use $199 "shed compiler tools".
Best regards,
Kris
Reply by ●March 3, 20042004-03-03
Hi All,
> Maybe Jason Moore at IAR UK can substantiate what happened
> there in the interim, since he doesn't use $199 "shed compiler tools".
>
> Best regards,
> Kris
Having recently purchased Microsoft's Xbox Live Starter kit to go
head-to-head on MechAssault, I find the parallels in this group and the
Live community quite astounding. :-) It's amazing how a simple little
post can provoke a large spleen vent, but it should all be taken in good
spirit. And Kris, you know IAR aren't all bad, all compiler vendors
have fallen foul of simple problems--chill out, my friend, your parts
will soon be with you, and you'll have better things to do! :-)
--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk
CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, and (soon) Atmel AVR processors
> Maybe Jason Moore at IAR UK can substantiate what happened
> there in the interim, since he doesn't use $199 "shed compiler tools".
>
> Best regards,
> Kris
Having recently purchased Microsoft's Xbox Live Starter kit to go
head-to-head on MechAssault, I find the parallels in this group and the
Live community quite astounding. :-) It's amazing how a simple little
post can provoke a large spleen vent, but it should all be taken in good
spirit. And Kris, you know IAR aren't all bad, all compiler vendors
have fallen foul of simple problems--chill out, my friend, your parts
will soon be with you, and you'll have better things to do! :-)
--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk
CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, and (soon) Atmel AVR processors
Reply by ●March 3, 20042004-03-03
> Hi All,
>
> > Maybe Jason Moore at IAR UK can substantiate what happened
> > there in the interim, since he doesn't use $199 "shed compiler tools".
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Kris
>
> Having recently purchased Microsoft's Xbox Live Starter kit to go
> head-to-head on MechAssault, I find the parallels in this group and the
> Live community quite astounding. :-) It's amazing how a simple little
> post can provoke a large spleen vent, but it should all be taken in good
> spirit. And Kris, you know IAR aren't all bad, all compiler vendors
> have fallen foul of simple problems--chill out, my friend, your parts
> will soon be with you, and you'll have better things to do! :-)
Oh, I am chilled out Paul :-)
I did volunteer I happily used IAR for a few years, of course they're not
all bad , heh.
I more thought that Brian had made a salient point.
Jason had requested any pros or cons after all, so I found it was not
misplaced to
voice my opinion (which seems to correlate with general consensus here).
It's not bothering me really.....
Of course all compiler vendors run into snags, it'd be unreasonable to not
expect that
from such complex pieces of SW !
I'm quite sure that Jason might have wanted to word his original post
differently.
And BTW, being originally Belgian, my big thing always has been seafood.
Oz introduced me to a myriad of new yummie things, but I've never found
mussels here
to be like the ones from the North Sea. I really miss true, fresh "maatjes"
as well.
-- Kris
>
> > Maybe Jason Moore at IAR UK can substantiate what happened
> > there in the interim, since he doesn't use $199 "shed compiler tools".
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Kris
>
> Having recently purchased Microsoft's Xbox Live Starter kit to go
> head-to-head on MechAssault, I find the parallels in this group and the
> Live community quite astounding. :-) It's amazing how a simple little
> post can provoke a large spleen vent, but it should all be taken in good
> spirit. And Kris, you know IAR aren't all bad, all compiler vendors
> have fallen foul of simple problems--chill out, my friend, your parts
> will soon be with you, and you'll have better things to do! :-)
Oh, I am chilled out Paul :-)
I did volunteer I happily used IAR for a few years, of course they're not
all bad , heh.
I more thought that Brian had made a salient point.
Jason had requested any pros or cons after all, so I found it was not
misplaced to
voice my opinion (which seems to correlate with general consensus here).
It's not bothering me really.....
Of course all compiler vendors run into snags, it'd be unreasonable to not
expect that
from such complex pieces of SW !
I'm quite sure that Jason might have wanted to word his original post
differently.
And BTW, being originally Belgian, my big thing always has been seafood.
Oz introduced me to a myriad of new yummie things, but I've never found
mussels here
to be like the ones from the North Sea. I really miss true, fresh "maatjes"
as well.
-- Kris
Reply by ●March 4, 20042004-03-04
Brian C. Lane wrote:
> Paul Curtis wrote:
>
>
>>>Someone Else (not Paul) wrote:
>>>If you are making 2 widgets in a shed then maybe even I would look at
>>>a $199 compiler
>>
>>
>>This assumes that price confers quality. Unfortunately, it does not.
>>Should I expect your $1800+ compiler to produces 10x the code density of
>>Richard'$199-ish MSP430 compiler, then?
>
>
> I come to the from the perspective of having used IAR compilers for
> several projects (HC12 and HC11), ImageCraft for 430f149 and playing
> with demos of CrossWorks for Linux for the 430.
>
> If you compare features/quality to price then ImageCraft's $199 compiler
> comes in at the top by a long shot. CrossWorks (from the little I have
> used it) is also very well priced. If I were selling the IAR compiler I
> wouldn't charge $10 for it.
>
> Just from a service perspective these 2 companies excel in customer
> support and participation with users. I've had new releases with
> bugfixes from Richard within hours of reporting them. Try that with your
> expensive compiler (and no, a higher price does not mean it is bug free).
>
> Brian
>
But you do get a better class of bug. ;@}
> Paul Curtis wrote:
>
>
>>>Someone Else (not Paul) wrote:
>>>If you are making 2 widgets in a shed then maybe even I would look at
>>>a $199 compiler
>>
>>
>>This assumes that price confers quality. Unfortunately, it does not.
>>Should I expect your $1800+ compiler to produces 10x the code density of
>>Richard'$199-ish MSP430 compiler, then?
>
>
> I come to the from the perspective of having used IAR compilers for
> several projects (HC12 and HC11), ImageCraft for 430f149 and playing
> with demos of CrossWorks for Linux for the 430.
>
> If you compare features/quality to price then ImageCraft's $199 compiler
> comes in at the top by a long shot. CrossWorks (from the little I have
> used it) is also very well priced. If I were selling the IAR compiler I
> wouldn't charge $10 for it.
>
> Just from a service perspective these 2 companies excel in customer
> support and participation with users. I've had new releases with
> bugfixes from Richard within hours of reporting them. Try that with your
> expensive compiler (and no, a higher price does not mean it is bug free).
>
> Brian
>
But you do get a better class of bug. ;@}
Reply by ●March 4, 20042004-03-04
From: "microbit" <microbit@micr...>
> but I've never found mussels here to be like the ones from
> the North Sea. I really miss true, fresh "maatjes" as well.
When Paul and I shared a flat in Brussels ... but that's another
story. He's already mentioned the boul-pat (a daily stop on the
way to the office) whose fruit tarts I still remember fondly.
After sampling shellfish in three continents, I have come to the
conclusion that cold water shell fish are just better than warm
water.
As to MSP430 relevance, our VFX Forth cross compiler for MSP430
is now available.
Stephen
--
Stephen Pelc, stephen@step...
MicroProcessor Engineering Ltd - More Real, Less Time
133 Hill Lane, Southampton SO15 5AF, England
tel: +44 23 80 631441, fax: +44 23 80 339691
web: http://www.mpeltd.demon.co.uk - free VFX Forth downloads
> but I've never found mussels here to be like the ones from
> the North Sea. I really miss true, fresh "maatjes" as well.
When Paul and I shared a flat in Brussels ... but that's another
story. He's already mentioned the boul-pat (a daily stop on the
way to the office) whose fruit tarts I still remember fondly.
After sampling shellfish in three continents, I have come to the
conclusion that cold water shell fish are just better than warm
water.
As to MSP430 relevance, our VFX Forth cross compiler for MSP430
is now available.
Stephen
--
Stephen Pelc, stephen@step...
MicroProcessor Engineering Ltd - More Real, Less Time
133 Hill Lane, Southampton SO15 5AF, England
tel: +44 23 80 631441, fax: +44 23 80 339691
web: http://www.mpeltd.demon.co.uk - free VFX Forth downloads
Reply by ●March 4, 20042004-03-04
Hi Stephen,
> From: "microbit" <microbit@micr...>
> > but I've never found mussels here to be like the ones from
> > the North Sea. I really miss true, fresh "maatjes" as well.
>
> When Paul and I shared a flat in Brussels ... but that's another
> story. He's already mentioned the boul-pat (a daily stop on the
> way to the office) whose fruit tarts I still remember fondly.
> After sampling shellfish in three continents, I have come to the
> conclusion that cold water shell fish are just better than warm
> water.
I seem to remember that some big prawns eaten in Waterloo didn't do me
any favours one night... I've never really taken to mussels.
> As to MSP430 relevance, our VFX Forth cross compiler for MSP430
> is now available.
Nice to see that you've finally made it available. :-) Are you
debugging over JTAG now?
--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk
CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, and (soon) Atmel AVR processors
> From: "microbit" <microbit@micr...>
> > but I've never found mussels here to be like the ones from
> > the North Sea. I really miss true, fresh "maatjes" as well.
>
> When Paul and I shared a flat in Brussels ... but that's another
> story. He's already mentioned the boul-pat (a daily stop on the
> way to the office) whose fruit tarts I still remember fondly.
> After sampling shellfish in three continents, I have come to the
> conclusion that cold water shell fish are just better than warm
> water.
I seem to remember that some big prawns eaten in Waterloo didn't do me
any favours one night... I've never really taken to mussels.
> As to MSP430 relevance, our VFX Forth cross compiler for MSP430
> is now available.
Nice to see that you've finally made it available. :-) Are you
debugging over JTAG now?
--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk
CrossWorks for MSP430, ARM, and (soon) Atmel AVR processors
