HI, Im a little confused!

[metalsapo]

Hi guys
include girls.asm
org  00
I'm so confused because yesterday i watched some episodes, and Dave said that getting the Arduino is a good start, a way to approach in an easy way, and that it is a professional interface, programmer, debugger, microcontroller, and that PICAXE was not, and in other part of the same episode he said something that programming in assembler is hard and all that, and programming in a higher level IDE and language will make the future.
Later another episode was about the PICkit 3, and it actually sucks, and i have the PICkit 2, so i was happy for a moment, but, I'm relearning to program microcontrollers with microchip, PICkit 2, assembler, later with C, with a book named, Designing Embedded Systems with PIC Microcontrollers, Second Edition: Principles and Applications and the books has taken me to program some things, and to copy and simulate, i´m in chapter 5, the thing is that soon or later, there must be a way to learn it, so, if someone has a shortcut to program microcontrollers, and make it count as serious, or tell me your experience if you like.
Thank you again.
Estuardo
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[kfishy]

Hi Estuardo,

I would start off with C if I were new to embedded programming and microcontrollers. From the Amazon reviews and TOC it looks as though your PIC book starts off with assembly, then goes into C; IMO I don't think that's the correct pedagogical order for modern microcontrollers where programming in C is the norm. It could be because the book is built around 8-bit PICs which don't have the most C-friendly architecture; I'd imagine a book about PIC32 would start off with C instead and only touch on assembly.

Another advantage of starting with C is that much of what you learn is transferable to other MCUs. Code to set and clearing bits in a memory-mapped device register is the same with only pointer addresses varying*, and the compiler/linker hides the idiosyncrasies of the memory model (most of the time). Your knowledge is then not locked in to a single vendor.

Tony

*Of course this overlooks things like endianness, alignment, and timings, but that's what datasheets and reference manuals are for

[metalsapo]

That is so interesting, yes, C is the next step, a few days later i noticed that ok, assembler is not hard, its so tedious, and remembering a week later a code is like playing puzzles with myself, but the good thing is that i have no pressure to learn it in a weekend, and i have this feeling that i´m just learning the right way, progressively into today.
Im not new in programming and assembler for the SPIM was the University´s method with HC08 motorolla microcontrollers with assembler, and the programming in C was before that, so i´m a little familiarized, but its hard to remember.
If i have some questions i will post.
Thanks guys.