- Tue Aug 04, 2015 10:57 pm
#25048
Howdy Clayton,
First, many thanks for the kind words. They are really appreciated.
I see this as the start of the book, not the end ... I plan to re-release it on or about the 1st of each month with whole new sections and corrections.
A few months back, when I started on the ESP8266 journey, I took Mr Cherts Eclipse package and built a program ... and then it was all a black box. It worked, but I had no idea "why" or "how" it worked. I'm pleased to say that many of the mists have lifted. So, at a high level, to compile a program on a Mac, you will need a C compiler for the mac. However, not just any C compiler. As I understand it, you will need a C compiler that generates Xtensa binary. For example, on a Windows machine, a C compiler that generates Intel binary would be of no use ... so we need and use a C compiler that compiles to Xtensa binary that we can then upload. However, the C compiler itself has to run natively on Windows. Same for your Mac, you will need a C compiler that runs natively on OSx but yet generates Xtensa binary.
Fortunately, I think that problem has already been solved. The good guys that distribute the Arduino IDE support ... which I believes includes OSx support ... also provide compilers ... my gut tells me that THEY get their compilers from yet another project ... but I don't know the identity of that one yet.
Getting back to Eclipse ... Eclipse provides the editors but a "toolchain" is invoked to compile the source ... so Eclipse doesn't care "who" provides the compilers and linkeditors, as long as they are present at compile time.
And that is the "loose" story ... what we need to do now is think through a path from notion to achievement, document the "parts" and document the "steps" ... and we will have a new documented asset ... but in my head, everything we need is already present ... just some assembly required.
Neil
Free ESP8266 book available for download
here.