MPLAB / Harmony / Documentation : bugged to death ?

[ker2x]

Hello everyone, got my first PIC yesterday (a PIC32MZ EC Starter Kit).

I get bug after bug ... is it just me or the microchip dev environnement and the documentation is a nightmare ?

I submitted my first ticket about a documentation error and it was accepted.
I'm filling a 2nd ticket right now because ... the harmony help pdf is PASSWORD PROTECTED ? 

I got other bugs i couldn't reproduce yet... like : a java stacktrace error dumped into a generated C files 
And some other troubles...

Am i doing it wrong ?

[dannyf]

Am i doing it wrong ?

Expecting Microchip software to work.

They make superb hardware, and superbly stupid software.

[ker2x]

Am i doing it wrong ?

Expecting Microchip software to work.

They make superb hardware, and superbly stupid software.

At least they make superb hardware

[Carrington]

The documentation is a nightmare.
...
The harmony help pdf is PASSWORD PROTECTED.

I fully agree, is a nightmare. If they don't give you the password, you can use this tool "GuaPDF" (not free) or similar.
But the help_harmony.pdf file in the previos versions has many errors. 
Better use this file: "C:\microchip\harmony\v1_00\doc\help_harmony.chm". Although, it is still difficult to understand.

[ker2x]

2 tickets in 2 days, we'll see what happen tomorrow 

[ker2x]

The good thing is : It seems that they take theses tickets seriously and they reply quickly. (both tickets were handled in less than 24h)

[dannyf]

they reply quickly.

I assume that their staffing levels reflect their assessment of their software's quality.

[ker2x]

i managed to reproduce the java backtrace dumped in a c file.
3rd ticket submited in 3 days 

[Rufus]

I submitted my first ticket about a documentation error and it was accepted.
I'm filling a 2nd ticket right now because ... the harmony help pdf is PASSWORD PROTECTED ? 

It probably isn't password protected. Acrobat 9.5 says a newer version of acrobat is required to read it. An older PDF viewer says it is password protected.

So however they generated it is messed up and they didn't test/check what they generated nearly well enough but it is unlikely they password protected it for reading.

Their other documentation generally requires acrobat 7 upwards and is password protected for modification which is stupid and annoying.

[ker2x]

I submitted my first ticket about a documentation error and it was accepted.
I'm filling a 2nd ticket right now because ... the harmony help pdf is PASSWORD PROTECTED ? 

It probably isn't password protected. Acrobat 9.5 says a newer version of acrobat is required to read it. An older PDF viewer says it is password protected.

So however they generated it is messed up and they didn't test/check what they generated nearly well enough but it is unlikely they password protected it for reading.

Their other documentation generally requires acrobat 7 upwards and is password protected for modification which is stupid and annoying.

It's not password protected in the windows package.
It's password protected in both macosx and linux package.

They reproduced the problem 

[Carrington]

This document (help_harmony.pdf) use a 256-bit AES encryption, is a compressed document (Acrobat X compatible).


Seems that this document is not ready to be used, the first page is blank. I attached the first 10 pages.

[Bud]

I consider it risky to do any projects in Harmony at this time other than simple explore.

[Carrington]

I consider it risky to do any projects in Harmony at this time other than simple explore.

In my case is just curiosity.

But 'Harmony' seems too complex... By now, I hate it. 

[BloodyCactus]

Im sticking to plib, harmony is not finished yet despite microchip pushing it on everyone.

[Bud]

To me it is bloody complex at the first and second try. Then I slowly started to understand it. Also the format of #define's naming is ridiculously long, to the point that probably they hated it themselves - in examples they actually re-#define them back to PLib shorter names. 

Unfortunately this is where Microchip is going, at least with PIC32, so we have to learn it.

[ker2x]

I'm interested in Harmony because of the OSAL lib & the FreeRTOS port