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From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan)
Newsgroups: alt.sources.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Short Hello World
Message-ID: <1991May5.011748.11595@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
Date: 5 May 91 01:17:48 GMT
References: <1991Apr30.213936.22878@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1991May2.102554.8679@cs.umu.se>
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dvljrt@cs.umu.se (Joakim Rosqvist) writes:

> [some boring C-code deleted]   :-)

> Ok, assembler strikes back with this: (56 codesize, 92 executable)

> OpenLib=-408
> Output=-60
> Write=-48

>   move.l 4.w,a6
>   lea    dos(pc),a1
>   jsr    OpenLib(a6)
>   move.l d0,a6
>   jsr    Output(a6)
>   move.l d0,d1
>   lea    hello(pc),a0
>   move.l a0,d2
>   moveq  #12,d3
>   jmp    write(a6)

> dos:   dc 'dos.library',0
> hello: dc 'Hello World',10

> /$DR.HEX$

And a better example of how _not_ to program would be hard to find.

You've managed, in a 15 line program, to include 3 "magic numbers"
that are dependent on the release of dos.library, so that your code
need not merely be reassembled for an operating system upgrade, but
rewritten.  Sprinkle an equivalent 20% fraction of bogosities into
100,000 lines of code, and you might as well throw it away and start
fresh as try to port it to the next release.

Doing the linker's job for it is _not_ a smart move, as the first
three lines clearly demonstrate.

If you are going to evade higher level languages to worship at the altar
of code size and speed, you have to work _much_ harder than this to
equal the high level language's relatively automatic maintainability
advantage.

Kent, the man from xanth.
<xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>