As this part of minous post in the RPM packager thread get lost, I'll start a new one here. I do embedded programming since a long time too. Here are some thoughts about that -
PIC
Some time ago tried porting the pic30 tool chain (for PIC24xx). Should have been an easy task if I would have some knowledge on porting *nix software to eCS. Sources are available and even some tricks from people who have done this for *nix. But run out of time after some build errors.
Would be very happy if these tools are available for eCS. Although I fear the debugger/IDE part would be not that easy as of the AFAIK closed source interfaces to ICD3 or RealICE. Minou do you like to start with the new NetBeans based version?
Hobbes holds some port I made for PIC programming/debugging. No IDE so far, since I didn't find anything related...
ARM
For new projects I use EFM32 ARM cortex-M3 devices. If you ever worked with such 32 bit device and a decent J-link debugger you never want to go back to the 16 or 8 bit world. Beside easier software development with 32 bit registers these devices are insane power efficient with a lot of features build into hardware. You never want to switch back f.i. to these crappy 64k memory restriction... As much as I like Microchip, partly cause the hardly never discontinued any part, for 32 bit I prefer the EFM32 (or any other real 32 bit design). In my experience you feel much to often the restrictions of the usual Microchip way of pimping up small parts with new features. Only comparing the flashing times of f.i. 100k code into a EFM32 and Seeger J-link with RealICE into a PIC24 gives a clear preference for the ARM track. Another example, AFAIK even the PIC32 tools are still not able to set a breakpoint during program execution. So what I really miss on eCS is Rowleys Crossworks for eCS with Seegers jlink dll.
Minou or others interested in embedded programming feel free to add your thoughts to this thread.
Same goes for ARM/Atmel. IIRC I ported some command-line software - but I didn't have hardware to try this software on, so I can't tell if it works.
A simple IDE would be a nice add-on, so maybe some of you can point me somewhere to find it.
Mentore