SF and the future

Discuss PIC and electronic related things

Moderators: David Barker, Jerry Messina

Francis
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Post by Francis » Sat Aug 07, 2010 2:58 pm

Maybe a version of Friends Renuinted?

I'll be moving onto Mchips compiler. Proton fine but old fashioned - a posh Basic Stamp BASIC.
I'm not a fan of MikroE. I confess I haven't tried it for a couple of years but I had the Pascal for dsPICs.
Examples out of date, 'Help' files referring to previous compiler syntaxes, poor explanations, slow support, slow technical bug-fix updates.
The lousy bug-riddled SD routines finished me with MikroE.
And when I saw what Steve had done in SF I went for SF.

Money wasted? No. Superb value. It's just a pity that a group of David-clones couldn't get Swordfish by the scruff of the neck and develop it to another level as the basics are superb.
Of course I'll still use it for hobby. I can't code in anything quicker now.
What a waste huh?

gem1144aaa
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Post by gem1144aaa » Sat Aug 21, 2010 3:15 pm

Hi

the new version of sf basic would be a top secret edition so it will never be published until 25 years past the issue date :lol:

sorry :wink:

liak
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Post by liak » Fri Aug 27, 2010 1:01 pm

That's not funny. Maybe the users here can persuade David to open his source code and each can contribute in their own capacity to expand it. It's a waste that SF should be let abandoned like this.

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Post by rmteo » Fri Aug 27, 2010 3:04 pm

I agree that SF is the best BASIC compiler out there - but it is still BASIC. If this is just a hobby for you, it may be OK to stay with SF and live with the uncertainties it has.

I would highly suggest moving to C - it really is not any more difficult to work with and has capabilities/features far beyond what is available in any flavor of BASIC. Also, with C, you have the option of using many other MCU's besides PIC's. For example, in the last year or so, quite a few new 32-bit ARM based MCU's (from the likes of NXP, ST and TI/Stellaris) have been released. These are much higher performance yet cost less in some cases than an 8-bit PIC. Also, you can get manufacturer developed/supported, yet low cost development tools for these new devices. Take a look at the NXP LPXpresso tool suite for the LPC111x, LPC134x and LPC176x processors (btw, the LPC1111 is priced at US$0.65/10,000). It is a complete hardware (including programmer/debugger) and software (C compiler and IDE) development system for US$30.

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Post by JWinters » Fri Aug 27, 2010 3:36 pm

I've finally made the switch to C as well. It took about 4 attempts over the years to finally make the switch stick. I was always finding excuses to try out another BASIC package.

There are still things I don't know how to do in C, but I'm muddling through and learning more every day. One thing I needed to get used to use to with C was how scoping worked. I had gotten used to SF's Pascal like scoping. The other thing that initially made it hard to switch to C was trying to figure out how to use Microchip's (and others) libraries. With so many layers of #defines and macros and header files, it's hard for a newbie to know what is C and what is a library. I bought a few books on using C with PICs. Unfortunately for me, they caused about as much confusion as they solved. This is because they all came with a CD and sample projects. But the projects usually include .s files (which are pre-compiles... no source code). So all the real details are still hidden. I do miss navigating through all the library files in the SF IDE.

Ironically, the most useful book I have on C has nothing to do with PICs at all. It's just a random "Learn C in 24 hours" book that has been sitting on my shelf for about 10 years. I finally blew the dust off of it and was delighted to discover ANSI C is ANSI C... whether it is a desktop PC or a microcontroller.

I do finally feel like a "big boy" when I'm in design meetings and I can swap code with everyone else now.

Actually, I'd like to thank Dave for finally pushing me to use the industry standard. Without his neglect for SF, I'm sure I would have limped along without C for years.
Last edited by JWinters on Mon Aug 30, 2010 8:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by ohararp » Fri Aug 27, 2010 5:02 pm

Jason, just curious which compiler you chose to use?
Thanks Ryan
$25 SMT Stencils!!!
www.ohararp.com/Stencils.html

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Post by JWinters » Fri Aug 27, 2010 5:12 pm

Jason, just curious which compiler you chose to use?
Not only did I switch from SF to C, but I went from 18F to 24 series.
I use Microchip's C30 compiler. It was free and there is a nice forum to ask questions.

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Post by Jerry Messina » Sat Aug 28, 2010 10:10 am

It's funny, I come at this from a different perspective.

I've used C (and other languages) for uC development for ages. In the end, I don't really care what the tool is, it's all about getting the job done. SF is a good tool for the 18F series parts. It says so right up front, and it's never pretended to be anything else.

The compiler has a few quirks (and some outright bugs), but all in all it's pretty stable. If it never changes from what it is now, so be it. While I'd like nothing better than to see it continue on, it's useful the way it is, and I'd imaging will be for quite a while.

You might complain that there haven't been any updates, but actually, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I've used tools for these little micros where I seemed like I was a member of the "compiler of the month" club. Constant changes that would usually break more things than the update would fix, and I've had that happen with more than one vendor, some of which are fairly well known (and not cheap). I'd much rather have a stable tool that DOESN'T change... at least I know where the issues are.

I don't know if we'll ever hear from David again, so if you're waiting for SF for the PIC32 series, you're probably in for a long wait. But, for the 18F series, it's a decent tool. It just seems that I can do most things faster using it that I can with other environments... no linker, header files, recompiling libraries for different memory models, etc etc.

You can say it's just BASIC, but C is just C... if you want a tool that supports porting across multiple processor families, I'm not sure why you would have stopped here to begin with.

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Post by tenaja » Sun Sep 05, 2010 6:00 pm

Well, for one, studies show that C programmers are about 18% slower than just about any other language...and that's when the programmers are allowed to choose their language.

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Post by rmteo » Sun Sep 05, 2010 11:38 pm

Anyone know of a real-time operating system (pre-emptive and/or co-operative) that works with SF - or any other dialect of BASIC?

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Post by normnet » Mon Sep 06, 2010 5:42 am

rmteo wrote:Anyone know of a real-time operating system (pre-emptive and/or co-operative) that works with SF - or any other dialect of BASIC?
A quick Goggle turned this up. Not tried.
David Kelly wrote: If it's a hobby activity, and you want to concentrate of quick and easy,
then I suggest ZBasic.net. Very fast development for a Virtual Machine
target on the AVR. Structured BASIC very similar to MS Visual Basic 6.
Has RTOS built-in.?
Norm

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Post by normnet » Tue Sep 07, 2010 7:10 am

rmteo wrote:Anyone know of a real-time operating system (pre-emptive and/or co-operative) that works with SF - or any other dialect of BASIC?
See BRTOS: A Real Time Operating System for the PIC.

Norm

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Post by David Barker » Fri Sep 10, 2010 12:54 pm


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