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From: hclausen@adspdk.UUCP (Henrik Clausen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Assembler Programming - Costs versus Benefits
Summary: Asm programs don't care about theory and still break on my A3000
Message-ID: <184a3cc5.ARN04295@adspdk.UUCP>
Date: 30 Nov 90 14:33:25 GMT
References: <1990Nov25.040121.10773@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
	<1990Nov27.004859.16630@cs.umu.se> <7150@sugar.hackercorp.com> <CEDMAN.90Nov28142350@lynx.ps.uci.edu>
Reply-To: hclausen@adspdk.UUCP
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.tech
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In article <CEDMAN.90Nov28142350@lynx.ps.uci.edu>, Carl Edman writes:

> In article <7150@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>    Almost certainly true. On the other hand, very few of these games run on my
>    Amiga 3000. If they were in C they would certainly be fast enough on this
>    machine.
> 
> If only I knew why Peter insist on thinking that Assembler Programs
> are less portable (among 68000 upward) than C programs. He is not
> talking about sources, but about executables.

   Well, most programs are distributed as executables, I think :-)

> To make one fact 100% clear (for those who didn't know it):
> A correct 68000 program runs unchanged on a 68030.

   Assuming no SW timing loops etc., yes.

> What Peter obviously means are dirty hacks. They don't work on all
> machines / OS combinations. But that is a totally different issue.
> Ugly hacks can be done in (almost) any language.

   An Asm programmer has to know about bits, registers, offsets etc. that a
C programmer wouldn't bother about. Thus, "smart" tricks come much easier
to the asm programmer than to the C ditto, and Asm programs break on my
A3000. Actually, dirty tricks are quite complex and unreadable (but
certainly doable) in C. In Asm, it's much more natural.

   If this isn't a problem with the language, it's with the programmers!

   Facts are, most programs that breaks on the 68030 are written in Asm.

   Every programmer that wants to play dirty on the system will pick Asm.

> I've explained that before to him, but obviously he didn't listen.

   That's just in theory, and therefore does not apply to Asm (-: :-)


                                               -Henrik

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