PRe Sales Question

CharlieM · Post by **CharlieM** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 7:19 am

Hi,

I am at the point of buying SF.I have some questions though.
1. Has there been any updates to the IDE? I noticed that there is not a way to comment or uncomment blocks of code.What is the latest version?

2. As of right now what is the life expectancy of the compiler? The reason I ask this is There is not much chatter on this forum.

Doj · Post by **Doj** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:03 pm

I have always wanted the uncomment/comment feature as I do not like th block {} system, you live with it and is a small price to pay for a superb compiler.
You can run in MPLAB if you wish, I do not and am satisfied with the IDE.

Updates do occur if there are any actual problems found, this has been rare as the problems are very, very infrequent.
The compilers life is as long as you keep it on your machine.
As the libraries are open source and allow any user to create or alter those already created there is not much maintenance required (in my opinion)

Not much chatter? we are all so busy working and using a compiler that is good enough to be invisible as it does what it should that there is not much to say!

If someone has an issue its quickly sorted out and that is it.

The IDE has a plugin manager that allows user to make plugins for the IDE, if you wish to address a feature it is possible to do this yourself, details on the WiKi.

Please do not let the lack of exchanges on here put you off, its not because things are bad, rather it all just works so well.

Steven · Post by **Steven** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 3:20 pm

I might be biased here, but I have to agree - it's all too easy..! It makes programming in SF very enjoyable.

rocketbob · Post by **rocketbob** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 4:52 pm

I'll second the above comments...SF is a very solid product, and I expect to not see much in the way of enhancements. One of the nice things about the IDE is the automatic updates, which makes keeping the compiler up-to-date really pain-free.

I do however hope that David is working on a PIC24/dsPIC version!

I'm not sure why he doesn't do a bit of advertising, because I think the lack of chatter has more to do with the compiler not being well-known. But I think if you ask anyone that has purchased SF and used it for real projects, you will find a very high degree of satisfaction.

CharlieM · Post by **CharlieM** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 10:11 pm

Thaks for all the replies.Well sense its mentioned I will ask.Once the SF version for the Pic24 is released will SF for the Pic18 go by the wayside or will it still be developed?

liak · Post by **liak** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 11:06 pm

Dear Charlie,

I agree with the rest. You will not regret buying it. The open source library is the greatest asset. It is a gold mine for programmer like me. They do away all my headaches and time to make my own. Thanks to all those who contributed to the user module library.

Regards,
Liak

CharlieM · Post by **CharlieM** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 11:22 pm

Thanks liak I think I am going to take the plunge and buy it. I was working with the SE version and the font creator plugin and I had code up and working in less than a hour. I know that SF is a a great compiler.
Thanks for all of the comments.