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From: greg@utcsri.UUCP (Gregory Smith)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: C as an aid writing assembler
Message-ID: <2837@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-May-86 00:38:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsri.2837
Posted: Sun May 25 00:38:33 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 25-May-86 10:58:53 EDT
References: <201@pyuxv.UUCP> <3700003@uiucdcsp> <132@vaxb.calgary.UUCP>
Reply-To: greg@utcsri.UUCP (Gregory Smith)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 43
Summary: 

In article <132@vaxb.calgary.UUCP> radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal) writes:
>
>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. It also doesn't directly apply when you're writing a ...
>
>     Radford Neal

It's still pretty common, and probably will be for some time. Consider
the ratio

		   Quality of hand-written code
		------------------------------------
		Quality of code from a good compiler

I would expect around 1.2 for a 68000 (the only 68K C compiler I've seen was
about a 1.7 but it wasn't *good*). However, I imagine a *good* 6502 compiler
would do well to score a 10 ( There's still a *lot* of those little beasties
out there...). More importantly, there are those great little single-chip
computers ( 8048, 6805 etc ) which would probably also come up in the 10-15
range on the above ratio. Since you have limited ROM ( meaning that every
byte counts and you can't write a *really* long program, anyway ), I doubt
that anyone has tried to write a compiler for these guys. You program them
in assembler, that's all. If you don't think these things are common, take
a good look at auto electronics.

Someday, auto computers may be programmed in C ( or D or E..), but they
will probably still be hand-coding digital watch controllers. When *those*
are compiled, they will be hand-coding automatic electronic pencil
controllers...

The world isn't all 68K's and vaxen and stuff like that...

-- 
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" - Vroomfondel
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Smith     University of Toronto      UUCP: ..utzoo!utcsri!greg