I am looking for a good C compiler for the PIC 16 family, working on Windows.
A couple of colleagues use bknudc but some seem to dislike it. Apparently you cannot use the linker efficiently, and it turns out that the best is to set all code in include files.
SDCC seems nice, but looks like it is still in beta, and not easy to setup or to have to deal with.
There are quite some other options, all are the best available according to themselves. I found some forums discussing the topic and no one seem to agree with one another. MikroC, CCS (expensive), HiTech, BoostC.
I would like to have some real information on what's good and what's bad.
If I got it right, the PIC16 architecture is not really C-friendly? Is there a compiler that lets the programmer work in ANSI C anyway? And a way to setup a nice enough debugger?
You're right in your assessment that PIC16 is not really C-friendly. If you want to code in C you are much much better off doing it with PIC18.
Microchip gives out an excellent and free IDE and compiler called MPLAB for the PIC18. Its really easy to work work. Plus the PIC18 family is generally more powerful but has some chips with a not much larger footprint than that of the PIC16 family.
Starting to develop a new product with PIC16 is a not a good idea.