Mikroc to Necto Migration Guide?

[steve42lawson]

I'm holding off on shelling out the $$$ for Necto for two reasons:
1) I want to see a Migration Guide for porting my large body of code from MikroC-PRO forPIC and dsPIC. I want to see how much effort it will take to port my code to the new environment. Also, I hope it will tell me if certain [long requested] features are finally implemented, like the ability to code the configuration "fuses", the preservation of header file paths in a project, implementation of the inline keyword, addition of bit and sbit arrays, the ability to pass an sbit variable to a function, etc.
2) It's kinda expensive! $30 a month? Geeeze... And, no price break for us loyal customers who've been with you for, like, a decade?!?

Unofficial third reason: I don't know if my case is unique, but MikroC, both PIC and dsPIC, have crashed A LOT!! And, it seemed like you guys placed most of your focus on developing your "Click" products, rather than supporting the Mikro compilers. So, if I'm going to shell out $30 a month, I'd like some acknowledgement of the instabilities and lackluster support, and even, perhaps an apology. Or, at least, some sort of assurance that attitudes have changed, and the Necto product is of higher quality, and issues will be addressed in short order.

[hexreader]

Necto is free for non-commercial use.

If you already have an old-style compiler licence, you will get a year's free commercial licence (I think)
---- or maybe it is only if you paid for Necto compiler already - not sure which

Plenty of opportunity to try before you buy.

Use legacy mode for older code that did not use SDK

Your old licences will remain valid even after you register for Necto

... at least this is my understanding and my experience, for what it is worth...

[janni]

I want to see how much effort it will take to port my code to the new environment.

Probably not that much effort - you'll have to start the projects anew but the compilers have basically the same capabilities (the PIC AI compiler can even work with newer processors but, due to missing processor files one cannot exploit it in legacy mode - even when using MikroSDK the choice is limited to single processor from a family). Unfortunately, the Necto environment is far from perfect and I doubt any serious programmer will stand it for long. Better check it out before committing to pay monthly rent. For me, just the fact that opened files are not remembered in next session is disqualifying, but that's just one of the most irritating quirks.
One may also be disappointed by lack of the features known from Pro IDE, like Statistics, Watch clock in simulation, or even EEPROM editor. Using the libraries is also not as convenient as in mC PRO with overly simplified Library Manager. I could ramble about how complicated other things got compared to PRO IDE but lets just state that nothing got easier.

mE would make a lot of people happy by adjusting the old IDE, even with all of its own quirks, to work with the AI compilers, but that's just wishful thinking.

Also, I hope it will tell me if certain [long requested] features are finally implemented, like the ability to code the configuration "fuses", the preservation of header file paths in a project, implementation of the inline keyword, addition of bit and sbit arrays, advanced compiler features like the ability to cast a bit field struct to an unsigned short [I needed this for shifting bits into a TLC5916 LED driver, for instance], the ability to pass an sbit variable to a function, etc.

[filip]

Hi,

1) I want to see a Migration Guide for porting my large body of code from MikroC-PRO forPIC and dsPIC. I want to see how much effort it will take to port my code to the new environment. Also, I hope it will tell me if certain [long requested] features are finally implemented, like the ability to code the configuration "fuses", the preservation of header file paths in a project, implementation of the inline keyword, addition of bit and sbit arrays, the ability to pass an sbit variable to a function, etc.

You can see how to import projects written in PRO compiler in the NECTO Studio help :
https://help.mikroe.com/necto/v2/

As for the features that you asked, some of them (like sbit) is not implemented in the mikroC AI compilers (due to the compatibility with the GCC and other C compiler). On the other hand, the inline and setting configuration bits from the code are on the developers' list.

2) It's kinda expensive! $30 a month? Geeeze... And, no price break for us loyal customers who've been with you for, like, a decade?!?

As you can see, there NECTO Studio is free for non-commercial use, so you can use it without any restrictions in this case.

Unofficial third reason: I don't know if my case is unique, but MikroC, both PIC and dsPIC, have crashed A LOT!! And, it seemed like you guys placed most of your focus on developing your "Click" products, rather than supporting the Mikro compilers. So, if I'm going to shell out $30 a month, I'd like some acknowledgement of the instabilities and lackluster support, and even, perhaps an apology. Or, at least, some sort of assurance that attitudes have changed, and the Necto product is of higher quality, and issues will be addressed in short order.

In this case I want to encourage you to use the NECTO Studio in the free mode, find out its capabilities and maybe some things that you don't like which we will correct - every opinion matters.
Once you get the hang of it and feel comfortable, you may choose to buy commercial license.

Regards,
Filip.

[steve42lawson]

Also, I hope it will tell me if certain [long requested] features are finally implemented, like the ability to code the configuration "fuses", the preservation of header file paths in a project, implementation of the inline keyword, addition of bit and sbit arrays, advanced compiler features like the ability to cast a bit field struct to an unsigned short [I needed this for shifting bits into a TLC5916 LED driver, for instance], the ability to pass an sbit variable to a function, etc.

[/quote]

I laugh with you!:

[steve42lawson]

Unofficial third reason: I don't know if my case is unique, but MikroC, both PIC and dsPIC, have crashed A LOT!! And, it seemed like you guys placed most of your focus on developing your "Click" products, rather than supporting the Mikro compilers. So, if I'm going to shell out $30 a month, I'd like some acknowledgement of the instabilities and lackluster support, and even, perhaps an apology. Or, at least, some sort of assurance that attitudes have changed, and the Necto product is of higher quality, and issues will be addressed in short order.

<snip> and maybe some things that you don't like which we will correct - every opinion matters.

Regards,
Filip.
[/quote]

History slides that "maybe" towards the improbable.