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From: jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: C as an aid writing assembler
Message-ID: <233@epimass.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-May-86 18:44:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: epimass.233
Posted: Thu May 22 18:44:23 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 25-May-86 10:44:45 EDT
References: <201@pyuxv.UUCP> <3700003@uiucdcsp> <132@vaxb.calgary.UUCP>
Reply-To: jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck)
Organization: Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 33

In article <132@vaxb.calgary.UUCP> radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal) writes:
>> 
>> I consider designing assembler code using a high-level language to be
>> "motherhood".  I have always done it that way (since I wrote my first
>> big assembly program in 1976), I thought most "modern" programmers did
>> it that way, and I teach all my students to do it that way.  Am I
>> hopelessly naive?
>
>In article <3700003@uiucdcsp>, johnson@uiucdcsp.CS.UIUC.EDU replies:
>Yes. The modern programmer only writes in assembly language if he needs
>to utilize machine features not possible from a high level language or
>he needs to get that last bit of speed. In neither case is writing the
>program in C first especially helpful. Note that nobody writes "big"
>assembly language programs anymore.
>...
>All this may not be true if you're stuck writing assembler on a machine
>without an adequate high level language, but I presume that this is no
>longer common. 

Those of us who do real-time digital signal processing write lots of
assembler, and for heavily pipelined, irregular architectures.  The
kinds of things we program can be done in high-level languages, only
orders of magnitude slower.  Compilers are few and far between.  I
personally follow the "human compiler" approach, translating C to DSP
code and letting the C routine serve as part of the documentation.
I find C to be the most natural language to do this with because of
its "close-to-the-machine" style.

Obviously we need net.dsp to discuss such things.
-- 
- Joe Buck 	{ihnp4!pesnta,oliveb,csi}!epimass!jbuck
  Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, California
  Better living through entropy!