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Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC?

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On 08/26/22 03:14, boB wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Jul 2022 13:00:41 +1000, Clifford Heath
> <no_spam@please.net>  wrote:
>
>> On 22/7/22 03:18, Phil Hobbs wrote:
>>> Grant Edwards wrote:
>>>> On 2022-07-21, David Brown<david.brown@hesbynett.no>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> 6. When you hit a bug, there's somebody being paid to answer your
>>>>>> phone calls.
>>>>
>>>> As pointed out below, "ansering your phone call" and "fixing your
>>>> problem" are two very different things. I don't care about the
>>>> former. I do care about the latter.
>>>>
>>>>> My experience with big commercial toolchains is that this does not
>>>>> always help - often the support people have very little technical
>>>>> experience or knowledge.  [...]
>>>>>
>>>>> My experience with open source toolchains is that you don't have a
>>>>> number to call, but you can find good help fast from forums, mailing
>>>>> lists, etc.  [...]
>>>>
>>>> Same here. Over the decades, my experiences with getting questions
>>>> answered and bugs fixed have been far, far better with open-source
>>>> tools than with commercial tools. However, that won't stop the
>>>> anti-open-source people from using "there's no tech support phone
>>>> number" as a reason to ignore open source tools.
>>>>
>>>>> But none of that contradicts the fact that "there is someone on the
>>>>> phone to help and/or yell at" being a significant reason for people
>>>>> to choose big name commercial toolchains over free and open source
>>>>> solutions.
>>>>
>>>> It is indeed a popular reason. It's just not a good reason.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Grant
>>>>
>>>
>>> My experience is different, though it wasn't with Keil et al.  For
>>> instance, one time long ago, I found a fairly horrible linker bug in
>>> Microchip C17--it was loading segments misaligned by one byte IIRC.  I
>>> sent in a support email at lunchtime, and the debugged linker executable
>>> was in my email the following morning.
>>>
>>> Of course I've had the same sort of thing happen with open source, e.g.
>>> the late lamented ZeroBugs debugger for Linux, written by the estimable
>>> Christian Vlasceanu.  Nice piece of code, that, but he ran out of gas
>>> and/or money and got a day job.  A pity--it was very nearly as good as
>>> the Visualage C++ 3.08 debugger (of song and story).
>>>
>>> I expect that the distinction is mainly the size of the teams and the
>>> user bases.
>>
>> Until Microchip bought the company, I think basically any substantive
>> question about Hitech C went directly to the founder (whose interesting
>>   name I can't recall). There were based at 45 Colebard Street West
>> Acacia Ridge QLD 4110, next to the Archerfield airport in the south of
>> Brisbane.
>>
>> There's something about small teams that ensures high-quality responses
>> - if you can get a response. Perhaps the opposites are true for large teams.
>>
>> Clifford Heath
>
> Wasn't Hitech the small company (that 1 guy?)  from Australia or NZ ??
>
> I remember around 2007 +/- year or two, when there was a big Microchip
> conference up here in the Seattle-Everett area, he came by my work at
> the time and sitting there in our lab, made some changes to his
> compiler or was helping us with some issue.   This was before Hitech
> was sold of course.   VERY good person and I can't remember his name
> either.
>
> boB
>
>
>

Hitech (sp ?) here in the uk were agents for Keil compilers, including
the 8051 8 bit series. We used that for a project around 1999 and it
produced consistently working code. Something like 6 x 32 K banks and
we never found a serous compiler bug.

You would not want to look at the asm source from it though, typically
pages of impenetrable asm just for a hello world...

Chris


>
>
>

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Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2022-07-20 13:49 +0200
  Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? "Peter Heitzer" <peter.heitzer@rz.uni-regensburg.de> - 2022-07-20 14:23 +0000
  Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-07-20 18:33 +0200
    Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> - 2022-07-20 15:55 -0400
      Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-07-21 12:58 +0200
        Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2022-07-21 15:05 +0000
          Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> - 2022-07-21 13:18 -0400
            Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Clifford Heath <no_spam@please.net> - 2022-07-22 13:00 +1000
              Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> - 2022-07-22 09:27 -0400
              Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? boB <boB@K7IQ.com> - 2022-08-25 19:14 -0700
                Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? chris <chris-nospam@tridac.net> - 2022-08-26 17:17 +0100
                Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-08-26 18:45 +0200
    Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2022-07-21 11:10 -0700
      Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid> - 2022-07-21 21:56 +0300
      Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-07-21 20:56 +0200
  Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? chris <chris-nospam@tridac.net> - 2022-07-22 12:04 +0100
  Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2022-09-01 23:25 -0700
  Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Michael Schwingen <news-1513678000@discworld.dascon.de> - 2022-09-04 20:39 +0000
  Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2022-09-05 17:33 +0200
    Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2022-09-05 10:32 -0700
      Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2022-09-06 09:22 +0200
        Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2022-09-06 01:59 -0700
          Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2022-09-06 12:12 +0200
            Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2022-09-06 04:26 -0700
        Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-06 11:09 +0200
          Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2022-09-06 12:41 +0200
            Re: Why use non-free compilers (Keil, etc) for architectures supported by SDCC? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-06 15:00 +0200

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