Re: STM32 ARM toolset advice?

Stefan wrote:

Compulsory car comparison: would you buy a car where the motor block is
cast in concrete, which only the vendor can fix, and only if you buy a
support contract? Or would you buy one which every backyard mechanic (or
you yourself using a self-help book) can fix?


Stefan



One thing is for sure I would not risk my families life or spend my life
in prison by driving a car that any "backyard mechanic", or someone having
a go using a "self-help book" has tried to mend the braking system that
they don't understand, who can't do the calculations to determine if the
tubing can withstand the pressure involved in an emergency stop, or even
worse thought they could make it so much better with just a little
alteration here or there.

Yes I might be able to find a contractor who would be willing to tell me
they can easily fix a thorny compiler bug - but having been burnt by over
confident coders, I would not risk my business or the jobs of people who
are employed by it on the basis of a contract who thought they knew how
compilers work better than a compiler vendor.

With an open-source tool-chain, you can always hire someone to do it for
you (if you don't want to do it yourself).

Yes but ! my engineers are paid to do the job my customers want done not
playing "backyard mechanic" fixing other peoples software. I did look at
the route you suggested of buying a supported Linux environment for a major
project we have recently completed. Wow, you might hate Microsoft but the
cost of using tools etc from a vendor offering what I needed packaged and
supported, was not far off 10 times the amount of buying the Microsoft
Tools.

Unfortunately, the GCC for our target is pretty bad.

Rather proves the point doesn't it.

The compilers we use knocks spots of the GCC equivalent compiler for every
single one of the targets we use, and with several project the code and
data bloating of the GCC compiler would have made the project too large for
the target processor, but then opur tools are written by a vendor who
really understand the needs of embedded targets, who specialises in that
one market.

I recently worked with another company who used a "free compiler" with all
the library sources provided for the embedded chip they put on one of the
boards in the system â?? wow they had problems, lots and lots of problems.
They ended up re-writing library functions, after of course working out how
they were supposed to work and how they actually worked, and several
abortive attempts to fix them themselves. etc. their "free tool" added
months to the project, now that I don't call free. Unless of course you
done get paid for your time, such as if youâ??re a student. Oh and our
mutual customer has asked us to quote for replacing their software
completely in the next upgrade to the product. A lost customer is a very
high price to pay for using a "free tool".

I guess my objection to open source is the way it is always portrayed as
"free" and "better than software you pay for". The trouble is the real
costs are ignored. Its almost as though open source is a religion that is
fundamentally right for all situations and for all people â?? "just because
it is", and somehow people earning a living writing software are evil
capitalists.

Bocote


.

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