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To those with experience,
For several months I have had the misfortune of working with FreeScale's CodeWearier ( err ... CodeWarrior ) and between myself and other team members using the same devel platform, we estimate we're spending well over 50% of our debug time battling the unreliability of the Codewarrior debug environment. I've dealt with several IDEs/Debuggers in my day, and this one is without question the worst.
At this juncture in the project, we are seriously considering changing our devel/debug tool and having been a long time Keil user and being familiar with the overall reliability of the uVision products ( from my experience anyway ), I'm wondering if I'm going to have any better luck with a Keil solution.
Some specifics: We using the Kinetis K60 CPU line, specifically a K60FX512. We're building our application on top of the MQX RTOS. MQX component used are: RTSC, SHELL, MFS, and HDK for simple host mass storage support.
Does Keil support a reliable and robust devel environment for the above. I'm looking for and expecting thing like:
* If the debugger accepts a break point on a certain line, I EXPECT it to actually break when execution encounters that line ... instead of just ignoring the break point or, as is often the case with CodeWearier, locking the entire IDE and requiring a complete restart of the application.
* If colored syntax options are supported, I EXPECT it to properly apply the coloring ... instead of randomly loosing track of identifier types/scopre and just giving up.
* If I have a structure member on and odd 16-bit boundary and the compiler has all the information to know this, I EXPECT it NOT to use access instructions that assume 32-bit alignment.
In general, if we switch to the Keil ARM-MDK for the K60 & MQX, will I return from the brink of suicide, or is it going to introduce a whole new host of problems to be discovered only after investing the money and time porting the projects over to this new platform ?
My apologies for sounding so cynical, but I'm at wit's end with FreeScale's solution ( if you can call it that ), and am seeking honest opinions from people with experience with Kiel and K60/MQX.
Thanks for any adivce you have to offer.
RW
You should talk to your local Keil sales office/distributor. Get them to come in to discuss your requirements and demonstrate the tools to you. Ask them the hard questions.
If you're serious, they should be able to give you a short-term licence to try out...
Thank you gentlemen. Can you tell me who the local sales rep is in the Minneapolis area ?