Greetings Matt, Summary up front -- I'd recommend a 'standard' Arduino, and spend at least 3 months learning Arduino and C. Then switch to the PIC32 Arduino if you like (by then it will either be working well or abandonded. And by then then you may be comfortable enough to work on JAT to fix bugs or add features that are missing.
Now the more detailed comments about JAT and cross-compilers, etc... In my experience, Codesourcery is an excellent choice for gnu 'gcc' cross-compilers these days. While they do indeed offer commercial support, the compiler is indeed free software and the source is available although I've never needed it. I've used their 'lite' cross toolchains on several different projects over the years and have been well pleased. The only thing that is typically missing from the 'lite' tools is the ability to burn flash directly from their nice debugger -- of course you can work around that with other tools, it just isn't quite as convenient but that is what I do here. It also looks like the PIC32 will be a winner -- since it is based on MIPS instruction set, which has been around in the Unix world for many, many years and is used in lots of embedded widgets, routers and such. The GNU GCC for MIPS has been around a long time also. You asked my advice on learning C -- well, until about a year ago, I would say just sit down in front of any Linux system or even a virtual machine running Linux and grab a copy of the classic book on C programming by K&R, 2nd Ed. But having used the Arduino for the past year or so, I'd say spend $30 on Arduino and use online examples or buy any of the Arduino books. Nothing is hidden from you by using Arduino IDE -- the full source is online. In fact, the proper GNU GCC cross toolchain will be installed for you and available for you to use directly, if you don't want to use the IDE. Personally I use the Arduino IDE, even though I rarely use IDEs for anything else. About JAT -- like Joep says, it is at the stage where it needs more work, but I'm not likely to have much time for such an undertaking any time soon. William -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "jallib" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/jallib?hl=en.
