How intimidating is Xilinx's EDK?

I've been a hardware (ASIC) engineer for the last

4 years, so I know all the basics of Verilog RTL coding, simulation, synthesis constraints, and the synthesis (netlist generation) design-flow. I've used Xess's XSV-300 and XS40-010XL+ FPGA-boards to do simple prototyping.

I know my way around C (not C++), and I can probably struggle through a *tiny* bit of assembly, but honestly, I am no software engineer. I do know the basics of computer architecture (registers, "instruction pointer", branches, etc., what makes a CPU a CPU, etc.)

...

Now I want to do some 'self-study' on embedded CPU and firmware systems. That got me looking at Xilinx's EDK (and Insight's Spartan IIE-Microblaze kit.)

Hear's the problem -- the posts in this newsgroup worry me. It seems like the Xilinx EDK's audience is 'expereienced' firmware people. I.e., people who know the ins/outs of compiling/linking/"object relocation", and the dreaded "make-files."

And if you are trying to use the EDK with an 'unsupported FPGA board' (target), good luck! Are all my fears unfounded? Does the EDK come with a "embedded design for dummies" tutorial? Or is it so complex, would it frustrate Linus Torvalds himself?

I'm willing to do a little bit of learning while hair-pulling, but if the EDK just isn't for the novice, I'd rather not waste the $$$.

Put it this way - EDK has come a long way in the last couple of years, and it's still infinitely better than trying to hand-roll this stuff yourself. They have created a fairly push-button flow for instantiating processors, busses, peripherals, launching synthesis tools, compiling source code, inserting object code into the bitstreams, downloading said bitstreams, interfacing with simulation and debug tools, and so on.

No matter how complex or otherwise EDK might be, it's still probably a lot better than trying to do all of that yourself, no?

There are tutorials that will take you by the hand to demonstrate the basics of the flow. However, like all things once you need to step off that path, there is a learning curve. The fact that you see plenty of traffic here on the subject demonstrates an active user community and a variety of sources of help.

Regards,

John