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Path: utzoo!watmath!wateng!ksbszabo
From: ksbszabo@wateng.UUCP (Kevin Szabo)
Newsgroups: net.works
Subject: Re: Not again!?  Assembler vs High-Level languages
Message-ID: <2251@wateng.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 7-Apr-85 09:14:27 EST
Article-I.D.: wateng.2251
Posted: Sun Apr  7 09:14:27 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 8-Apr-85 01:15:59 EST
References: <483@terak.UUCP>
Reply-To: ksbszabo@wateng.UUCP (Kevin Szabo)
Organization: VLSI Group, U of Waterloo
Lines: 22
Summary: 

All this chatter about Assembler Vs H.L.L. is silly.  Doesn't
anybody read `Programming Pearls' by Jon Bentley in CACM?

You drop into assembler only when you absolutely HAVE to.
But first, you get the program right. Once you have it
correct you leave the correct code in as comments, and
you spend some time on the most time critical portion.
Before you drop into assembler though I hope you have
a) examined your algorithm, and b) profiled your code.
You wouldn't want to waste all that time you are going
to spend trying to make it fast!

Doug spent 5 times as much time coding the algorithm so
it was fast.  He could very easily made a small error.
The asm coding forces you to think about the implementation,
not what you are really trying to do, which is solve a problem.

A fast program that gives the wrong answers is useless.

				Kevin
-- 
Kevin Szabo  watmath!wateng!ksbszabo (U of Waterloo VLSI Group, Waterloo Ont.)