Author Topic: Keil or IAR compiler for arm  (Read 41170 times)

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Offline dannyf

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #50 on: February 14, 2014, 02:43:08 pm »
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Because the nuts and bolts of every compiler are obviously the same.

You are absolutely correct.
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Offline free_electron

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #51 on: February 14, 2014, 03:14:54 pm »
@westfw. Your point number 4 is the key. Cisco is large enough to have a dedicated compuler support team. As a coder tasked with writing the routine to implemenet a specific function you would not set up your own compile environment, configure eclipse or other editor to mesh , or write your own processor def files. Or figuere out how to install the debugger.

That is my mode of working. I am tasked putting a screw in a hole. I do not want to build scredrivers or screws. I go get the appropriate screw and screwdriver. There are 8 working hours i am being paid for. I have no interest in creating more work for myself delving into compiler code, altering scripts or debugging with printf. Gimme a prepackaged tool that works out of the box.
If my boss is to cheap to provide me with a screwdriver he'll have to find someone else to get it in.

Same applies for home use. You can get starter versions for 99$. 32k is a lot of memory. Of course if you begin your design by wanting to plonk a linux kernel on a chip to blink an LED ...  But then you are overdoing it or you need to learn proper programming.
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Offline andersm

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #52 on: February 14, 2014, 06:25:53 pm »
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Because the nuts and bolts of every compiler are obviously the same.
You are absolutely correct.
Only for the most trivial usage. Once you have to start dealing with memory layouts and other linker behaviour, things are different. Switching platforms is much less of an issue when you can take your tools and your knowledge with you.

Offline dannyf

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #53 on: February 14, 2014, 06:34:12 pm »
-Only for the most trivial usage-

you are too modest. Your statement is certainly true universally.
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Offline Kjelt

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #54 on: February 14, 2014, 07:37:38 pm »
Same applies for home use. You can get starter versions for 99$. 32k is a lot of memory. Of course if you begin your design by wanting to plonk a linux kernel on a chip to blink an LED ...  But then you are overdoing it or you need to learn proper programming.
$99 with Ulink or stlink support? Where? I can not find anything decent under $2k

32k is a lot of memory for microcontrollers that do their own proprietary thing and do not need to be connected to the outside world talking large protocols. But then you wouldn't need a 32 bit ARM anyway.
If you do need a full 32 bit ARM chip you probably are doing fancy things like touchscreen LCD with GUI and for communication an IP stack, 32k is then way too little. Nowadays you can buy for $10 to $15 a complete pcb with micro and hardware that have a fully loaded ARM chip with 512kB ROM and 128kRAM, too sad if you can only use 32kB  :(  Also support for a Ulink debugger or STlink debugger is a must if you ever have to seriously debug your code.
 

Offline dannyf

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #55 on: February 14, 2014, 08:17:02 pm »
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32k is a lot of memory for microcontrollers that do their own proprietary thing and do not need to be connected to the outside world talking large protocols. But then you wouldn't need a 32 bit ARM anyway.

Yeah. Try to compile emWin and / or those dsp stuff and there isn't a whole lot of space left in the 32k limit.
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Offline westfw

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #56 on: February 15, 2014, 02:50:46 am »
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I do not want to build scredrivers or screws. I go get the appropriate screw and screwdriver.
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Cisco is large enough to have a dedicated compiler support team.
It is NOW.  It wasn't always.  Somehow, it manged to become that big, using a gcc environment.  That should mean something, too...

At one extreme you have the coder who wants his computer to boot into the Keil environment, but is pretty lost when it comes to the windows environment, and can't even install it himself (because "I never figured out how to get around those windows8 driver permissions issues.  W8 sucks!", or something.)
At the other extreme you have the guy who is going to make everything exactly the way he wants it; builds the compiler himself with custom ("useful") patches from multiple sites, uses a different editor than everyone else, constructs incomprehensibly complex Makefiles from scratch, and so on.

Frankly, I'd rather not work with either of those people.  Fortunately, there is lot of room in between.  (The advantage of a bigger company is that you end up with a spectrum.  The disadvantage of a small company is that you have to pick a spot...)
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #57 on: February 15, 2014, 09:27:25 am »
Well for big companies Keil is also not always a blessing, lot of license issues where you pay a couple of $100k a year for some floating licenses but you are not even allowed to use them worldwide (because of the different dealers on the continents). So you're forced to set up floating license servers per continent ,do the negotiations per continent, pay the fees per continent. The floating license of the old version lives for one hour per computer, so if you have for example 100 SW engineers and 40 floating licenses this could not be enough if in one hour timeperiod more then 40 SW engineers and test and build servers build the SW. So what you would like is that it would release the license within a minute when the build is over, at least that would be logical. Now on a daily basis we burn tens if not hundreds of engineering hours because the licenses are not available. Takes back the good old times, write your software and study it over and over again before daring to press the build button (or as in the good ol' days, handing in your pile of punchcards and wait a day till you were delivered a pile of paper with the printout (no that was way before my days)).
Then you switch to a newer (not backwards compatible) version of the compiler but wait all the old products which are still under life cycle management still have to be able to be serviced and build so you also need to have the old version license, or spent hundreds of eng. hours converting the old projects, testsetups and buildservers. From an outside perspective (i have luckily nothing to do with those negotiations) it starts to look like a scam, once hooked you're in it for life.

Still I must say I would love to have a Keil compiler for my home projects, working with the ulink2 and everything taken care of is comfortable.
 

Offline resistor

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #58 on: February 15, 2014, 10:14:23 am »
Horses for courses, and all of that.

Different people have different skill sets.  I have a lot of experience with Unix-ish software, including building and configuring toolchains, so it's simply not a hurdle for me to setup and use a GCC toolchain for a new target.  In fact, it's typically easier for me than trying to learn a vendor's IDE.  I can whip up some Makefiles and headers in a few hours, and be off and productive in my preferred coding environment without having to figure out what checkboxes this particular vendor has mapped to which compiler flags.
 

Offline dannyf

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #59 on: February 15, 2014, 10:46:00 am »
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once hooked you're in it for life.

This is where generally speaking software shops have been very careful with anything from the compiler vendors. IAR's state machine software, for example, is absolutely state of the art. Yet, you will not find many people using it, because it is so tightly integrated with its tool chains.

The same with compiler upgrades.
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Offline gocemk

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #60 on: February 15, 2014, 02:12:57 pm »
Hey guys,

I found an interesting article on embedded.com called "What’s more important than a processor?" which i think has more in common with this topic than it's title suggests. A survey was conducted on a few thousand embedded engineers and they were asked what would they choose if they were stranded on a desert island: their preferred processor, preferred OS, or preferred development tools. The majority of them answered - their development tools. So, i really think it's tough to convince someone whose preferred toolchain is GCC to switch to some proprietary tollchain like IAR/Keil and vice versa. For me for example, CooCox IDE worked straight out of the box with the STM32 F3 discovery board. So i can't complain, but on the other hand, i'm saying this from a hobbyist perspective.

Here's a link to the above mentioned article:

http://www.embedded.com/electronics-blogs/significant-bits/4427807/What-s-more-important-than-a-processor-
 

Offline dannyf

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #61 on: February 15, 2014, 03:06:07 pm »
Its nuts to worry about your tool when you are stranded on an island.

having said that it does confirm two things:
- processors are largely unimportant if you code in a hll.
- if your livelihood is on the line, you don't want to mess with your tools.

unfortunately, it did break down the tools used.

my casual observation would be 50 perc uar, 40 perc keil, etc.
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Offline dannyf

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #62 on: February 15, 2014, 04:13:04 pm »
I particularly liked this comment:

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For most companies, most of the investment is in their software layers.

If that software can be ported easily, then the software can be easily moved around from one set of silicon to another and products can grow easily.

The most valuable thing for a software shop is that proprietary software layer (middleware).

A huge competitive differentiator.
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Offline westfw

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #63 on: February 16, 2014, 05:38:52 am »
There is, of course, some "science" to writing your software in such a way that it is NOT compiler-dependent.
It seems to be a lot harder than it ought to be.  Something that implements a standard like C ought not get a label of "proprietary toolchain" (reserve that for things like Spin, or the semi-custom version of BASIC, or other REALLY proprietary languages.)
 

Offline redben

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #64 on: February 17, 2014, 05:32:44 pm »
I'm really pleased of Keil uVision software to program my diverse arm developpement boards.
I'm really satisfied with the evaluation version of the soft.
Hopefully it helped.

Good luck with your research of satisfaction.
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: Keil or IAR compiler for arm
« Reply #65 on: February 17, 2014, 06:18:23 pm »
There is, of course, some "science" to writing your software in such a way that it is NOT compiler-dependent.
It usually is the linker that is terribly manufacturer dependent.
 


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