Is there an up to date course on learning to program the pic micro-controllers strictly in c/c++? If there is a book or course that doesn’t get too bogged down in heavy math and theory and provides practical projects while also not lightly glossing over things that would be nice
Hello @majorkuso
Is there a reason why you want to learn PIC?
If you have to choose, I say that you take a look at STM32, instead.
they seem cheap and seem to be used everywhere, i also have a pickit3 that I can use. What advantage would the stm32 have over 32bit pics or avr micros?
does anyone have any resources for learning the topics?
Well, if you already have the pickit, then sitck with it.
It is simply because ressources for STM32 are being updated more frequently and that more boards with recent features are being made from it.
AVR might also be an option if you’re willing to explore.
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Hey @majorkuso! Welcome to the RobotShop community!
You can probably find plenty online with a few good searches, such as:
[ PIC related info to get started ]
- https://microcontrollerslab.com/pic-microcontroller-tutorials-beginners/
-
https://theembeddedlab.com/tutorials/pic-microcontroller-setting-up-tools/ (part 1)
https://theembeddedlab.com/tutorials/pic-microcontroller-led_blink/ (part 2)
That site also has plenty of other tutorials, such as https://theembeddedlab.com/tutorials/uart-pic-microcontroller/ - https://www.instructables.com/id/Programming-PIC-Microcontrollers/
- http://www.lukeallen.com/pic.html
[ More general microcontroller/embedded C tutorials]
- https://www.elprocus.com/basics-and-structure-of-embedded-c-program-with-examples-for-beginners/
- http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~nelson/courses/elec3040_3050/C%20programming%20for%20embedded%20system%20applications.pdf
- https://www.embeddedrelated.com/showarticle/453.php
- http://students.iitk.ac.in/eclub/assets/lectures/embedded/Embedded-Old-1.pdf
- https://www.newbiehack.com/MicrocontrollerTutorial.aspx
Enjoy those resources and continuously keep looking for more everywhere! 
As you get more experience with one architecture, make sure to explore others too. This is important since often you’ll find a good quality example or open source piece of code for one architecture that you’ll then need to port over to yours!
Good luck with your learning! 
Sincerely,
P.-S.: I’ve only scanned through the resources above, but they seemed decent enough to be helpful!
thanks guys I will keep this in mind, speaking of the avr do you think microchip will make a unified tool or platform for programming both. I guess in a way get rid of the divide between the 2 ?
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That is a very good question. I figure this is unlikely, at least in the near future. Both ecosystems have coexisted for a long time and if I were to take an educated guess it would most likely be because they offer something different/solve different problems or fulfill different needs. Software solutions (to develop on those platform) are usually tightly coupled with those needs. They also have different toolchains.
Therefore, it will probably take a while for them to merge (if ever).
As for the libraries (libc environment, device drivers, etc.) since they target different µC architecture those will also most likely stay separate.
All in all, just write good ANSI C code to keep it portable and decouple it from architecture specific details so you can move it around easily!
Sincerely,
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