Re: [avr-gcc-list] Re: crosstool-NG

[Graham Davies]

David Brown wrote:

> (This is going to sound like an "I want" rant - which I suppose it is ...
> I am a professional developer ...  You don't change toolchains in a 
> project without very good reason ...
> So I have a range of WinAVR compilers on my machine ...
> It is vital that I can take an old project, re-compile it with the same 
> toolchain and the same options, and generate a bit-perfect copy of the old 
> binary target file ... and a whole lot more.

I just want to say that David is spot on for what professionals need.  I go 
a little further and fix the version of AVR Studio for a project as well. 
Since you can have only one version of AVR Studio installed at a time and 
AVR Studio does not uninstall reliably, this means that I have to re-install 
the operating system to switch versions.  The only disagreement I have with 
David is the desire for everyone to move to Eclipse.  All of my attempts to 
learn how to use it have ended with my head spinning.  AVR Studio has about 
the right level of complexity and functionality for me.  Eclipse is just too 
heavy.  I know I am in a minority, so no discussion is necessary.

But, why is the situation at Atmel the way it is?  Atmel have never been 
very good with technical support.  I am an Approved Atmel AVR Consultant.  I 
even have a number (13660).  Even so, getting any kind of technical support 
is murderously difficult.  (In fact, being an Approved Consultant gets me 
exactly nothing other than the ability to boast about it.)  So my guess is 
that Atmel only want to even pretend to offer support on the latest version. 
This, I think, is why professional developers will never get what they want. 
It is just to expensive for Atmel to contemplate.  We won't pay high prices 
for development tools, so Atmel is forced to take a low-cost approach. 
Maybe this also explains why only Windows is supported.  Just my thoughts.

Graham.