I am interested in any comparative analysis between Freescale's CodeWarrior tool chain and CodeSourcery G++ for developing embedded applications for the ColdFire family of processors.
+2
A:
We've used CodeWarrior for ColdFire, and also for HCS12. It's one of the better IDEs for embedded software, and being designed for embedded systems, the debugger is built right into it.
Having said that, though CodeWarrior is an effective coding environment, it still lacks a lot of the features of modern, mainstream IDEs. Also, while the debugger is useful, the version I have experience of is occasionaly buggy and unintuitive.
I can't comment on the CodeSourcery compiler, but the fact that it uses Eclipse is a good thing. By doing it this way, they can focus on their core product (the compiler), while IDE experts work on the IDE. In addition, if other embedded compilers follow suit, it saves having to become familiar with a different IDE every time you use a new compiler.
Eclipse is a powerful code editing envivronment, far superior to any embedded IDE I've used.
Steve Melnikoff
2009-08-01 00:19:50
Did you have any need to make use of Freescale's support team? If so, how would you rate that experience? Thanks.
Brandon E Taylor
2009-08-01 00:48:35
Many times. I found their technical support to be mostly very helpful, and they normally respond in a timely fashion. The forums (http://forums.freescale.com/freescale/) are also very good, and are monitored by Freescale employees.
Steve Melnikoff
2009-08-01 14:18:03