Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!paperboy!hsdndev!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Re: Re- HLLs vs. Assembly Message-ID: <15840@smoke.brl.mil> Date: 16 Apr 91 00:51:37 GMT References: <9104060651.AA18946@apple.com> <10408@pitt.UUCP> Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD. Lines: 21 In article <10408@pitt.UUCP> reanor@speedy.cs.pitt.edu.UUCP (Jeffrey Getzin) writes: >Very few people will EVER need to program in Assembly(-er) Language >during their entire lives. That is true for most computers, including what I term "real" computers. Unfortunately, however, the Apple II's puny processor offers only very poor support for high-level languages, so there are occasions in the life of any serious Apple II programmer when resorting to at least a modest amount of assembler is called for. >The answer is that you can learn a lot from an Assembler Language, but not >enough, since it is all machine-specific, which in Computer Science is next >to useless. Instead, I feel that a Computer Architecture course should >be a mandatory element in a Computer Science program, and it is here >that the understanding of "what is a computer" be investigated. I fully agree. Computer architecture is worthy of serious study, but any particular machine language is not -- until such time, if ever, when you are personally called upon to deal with it, as for example in establishing the vectors for interrupt handlers or in providing nitty-gritty run-time support for a high-level language.