Well It looks like there is a somewhat of a consensus of opinion here as what I have said a number of times.

My idea is that in order to be succesful making a product with a microcontroller, whether that be a beloved Cygnal C951F124 @25 MHz, a Mototola MC69HC908G32 or even a Microchip PIC16C54, it is essential to understand the part !!! C makes an abstraction over the top of whatever architecture to the point that if you do not know what is going on inside the compiler and how it maps code to the microcontroller architecture it becomes very easy to produce almost garbage program code. This level of abstraction actually leads to GREAT difficulty for beginners to learn the part and its architecture if they code in C. And I cannot tell you how many times I seen people that have tried to learn this way fail because once they made a big huge garbage program they could not debug it. I have literally heard the words "I cannot debug it! What do you expect me to do: learn assembly language?"

So.....In trade schools, universities, colleges and so forth C compilers on micro-controllers should not be permitted for Senior Projects or Grad Requirements Designs. Out in the business community any manager at a company that has engineers working for him on microcontroller projects should take away the C compilers from those engineers that have not done at least one successful project in assembly language on the microcontroller. And by successful project I mean something that has at least 8 or 16K bytes of good reliable assembly programming running the product. If you are a consultant I suggest that when you advertise and sell your services you do not brag up how fast you can get the project done becasue you work just in C. Instead make 1 or 2 designs in assembler first and then goto the C. Now you can tell your potential client that you will bring the BEST solution to his project. Thats really what he wants to hear anyway. And for the learner and ardent enthusiasts like Waqar that want to learn the most possible stay completely away from the C compiler. It will be like a fox trap ready to snap on your toe. Learn with the assembly language. IT IS THE VERY BEST WAY.

My position is borne out of nearly 30 years of working in this field. I've seen 'em all believe me. Using C on an a microcontroller is similar to teaching kids in secondary level education that math fundamentals are equivalent to pressing one of...
... instead of teaching them what the underlying functions really are and how to derive, translate, and compute with them.

Michael Karas