If you've only got one month and have no idea of what the project is, that could be a tricky spot to be in!

That's not a lot of time to learn a platform from scratch AND try to squeeze out a viable product.

BTW... you didn't mention how much programming experience you have (or hardware experience for that matter).

Will this be a one-off? or will it be massed-produced?

If you are looking at super-low quantities, would a canned (ie. PLC) be better suited to your project?

As for language selection...

I would learn both for a few reasons:

1) When you're looking at an assembly listing of your compiled c source (yes, you WILL have to at some point), you'll understand what's going on. Even the c people have to refer to the assembly listings to justify thier compiler performance arguments :)

2) I get frustrated when the compiler generates better assembly code than I would have for the same routine. I get even more frustrated when it comes up with something that's four times as long. It's nice (and often critical depending on your application) to be able to hand-craft routines in assembler when you really need a tight bit of code that the compiler just can't produce.

3) Although assembly will never go away, c is gaining alot of popularity in embedded systems of all sizes and should be part of your bag-o-tricks.

4) And if the above isn't enough, learning both just plain adds to your marketability.


Regardless of choice, in embedded systems you ABSOLUTELY MUST have a firm and thorough understanding of the innards of the device you are working with. By their nature, small 8-bit controllers will probably never enjoy anything approaching the level of hardware abstraction that high-end systems do. Good thing too.

Joe