First of all, I agree with you completely, and I'm glad somebody is finally bringing this type of thing out into the open.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shinigami2057
- An open-source compiler toolchain for the PIC18. This is likely the most difficult, but it is definitely possible with all the active developers on this site  |
This is definitely the biggest issue barring the use of Linux and other UNIX's. We don't need to port the whole MPlab IDE. Once the compiler is taken care of, people will come up with their own makefiles and text editors.
But FIRST will need to get their support behind all of this if anything is going to happen. Right now, there are a couple projects going on (not in the way of compilers though), but they are very fragmented. An example would be Eclipse. It seems that every year, somebody is coming up with a new plugin for Eclipse to allow it to work with C18. Newbies like myself would like to use Eclipse or some other IDE, but don't know where to start after digging through the multitude of threads and whitepapers on this site.
With open source tools, one has the advantage of being able to use them in any combination on any system. FIRST needs to start heading in this direction.