Unlike PC's and other "large" systems, MCU's require that one consider what resources are being consumed. Today, it doesn't matter whether one's code will occupy 100 bytes or 8000, since the smallest "full" 805x's seem to have that 8192-byte program store. It doesn't matter whether they consume 10 or 100 bytes of read-write memory, since they all seem to have more than that.

If one wants to write larger-than-8kB-programs, or use many large tables, which can be very convenient and reliable, that's where the debate over ASM vs 'C' begins. The difficulty begins with the fact that the programmers don't want to learn more than one tool set. While a good Macro-Assembler allows the generation of very orderly, well-organized, well documented, and easily maintainable code, programmers like shortcuts. Of course, shortcuts come in two flavors. There are those that simply skip over essential steps, and there are those that simply choose a thriftier path through the task.

HLL's are not a shortcut. They're just another tool, and, IMHO, they're inappropriate for use in coding tasks of < ~200K lines. If you have to write an OS, well, OK. If you just want to transport data from here to there and manipulate it on the way, well, ASM is probably better. It may even be easier for the programmer.

RE