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From: dyer@atari.UUcp (Landon Dyer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: assembly programming prefereable to HLL programming ?
Message-ID: <476@atari.UUcp>
Date: Thu, 4-Dec-86 14:20:36 EST
Article-I.D.: atari.476
Posted: Thu Dec  4 14:20:36 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Dec-86 21:10:21 EST
References: <646@instable.UUCP>
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 54

>  1. The ONLY siginificant advantage of HLL is a shorter CODING time.
>  2. Design, documentation, testing time is (almost) the same in both cases.
>  3. The assembly program will run 2-5 times faster.
>  4. So, after enough runs of the program the coding time gap will be 
>     swallowed. From then on, the assembly program gains non-stop.
> 
> Seems to me that this does not hold water.
>      
>  1. No mention of changes/maintenance issues anywhere.
>  2. I strongly question ALL of the above assumptions. 
>  3. As one of the compiler writers for NS , If assembler programs,
>     as a rule, ran 2 times faster than our compiler, 
>     I would be greatly surprized and FIX THE COMPILER !

Generally, assembly-language programs will run faster (and will
be smaller) than compiler-generated code.  Depending on your
machine's architecture, though, you may never want to program in
its assembly language (e.g. IBM 801 and other RISCs).  Friendlier
machines like the 68000 are another story.

     1. No one cares how much you suffered.  The *only* thing that
	a user sees is the product's performance . . . or lack therof.
	The user doesn't care what you wrote it in.  Once the product
	gets to market it stands on its own merit.

     2. It probably *is* more expensive to write a system in assembly
	than in an HLL.  Is it worth the effort?  What's the return?

     3. Given a piece of source code to compile, some present day
	compilers may well be able to out-perform a human (not for
	compilation speed, but for execution speed and space).

	But this is not what happens when a human writes in assembly
	language.  Many perfectly acceptable structures in assembly
	are illegal or difficult to express in an HLL.  The whole
	flavor of the project changes . . . not just the code generator.

	Humans are perfectly capable of using those "wierd, high level"
	instructions that compiler writers claim are useless.  (Show me
	a 68000 C compiler that uses MOVEP, TAS or SNE!)


Lotus-123 is non-portable, written mostly in assembly, and has made
its writers a *bundle* of money.  I don't suppose they're complaining
about how hard it was to write.

-- 

-Landon Dyer, Atari Corp.		        {sun,lll-lcc,imagen}!atari!dyer

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