Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!samsung!think.com!paperboy!hsdndev!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: IIgs Unzip thing
Message-ID: <15643@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 30 Mar 91 15:06:12 GMT
References: <15609@smoke.brl.mil> <1991Mar28.012635.14869@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <13156@ucrmath.ucr.edu>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 20

In article <13156@ucrmath.ucr.edu> rhyde@ucrmath.ucr.edu (randy hyde) writes:
>Most people who refuse to use assembly language on anything, or even as
>little as possible, are displaying their ignorance.  All languages have
>their place.

Assembly language does have its place, which is quite limited in scope.
Far from being "incompetent", as you called them, software developers
use HLLs because they learned the lessons of the late 1960s and early
1970s.  I have probably written more assembly language code for more
distinct computer architectures than you ever will, but you won't catch
me using it these days unless a PORTABLE language will simply not do the
job.  Consider what would have happened if UNIX had been left coded in
PDP-11 assembly language; it certainly would not have become the near-
universal operating system that it now is.  According to your notions,
it would have been justified to use assembler just for the small increase
in speed that would have been attained (in this case, we actually have
some measured numbers to show how little speed was lost in the rewrite
into C).  According to the rest of us, that small amount of improved
speed would not have been worth the impediment to further development and
especially portability that it would have caused.