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From: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Teaching Assembler on VAX (BSD 4.3)
Message-ID: <626@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 16-May-87 12:32:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: bsu-cs.626
Posted: Sat May 16 12:32:05 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 17-May-87 08:49:40 EDT
References: <351@aucs.UUCP> <588@maccs.UUCP>
Reply-To: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi)
Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana
Lines: 22
Xref: utgpu comp.edu:333 comp.lang.misc:388

In article <588@maccs.UUCP> ns@maccs.UUCP (Nicholas Solntseff) writes:
>Two years ago I ran our assembler programming course under BSD4.2 and vowed
>never to do it again.
>
>There is NO macro assembler available for the VAX (unlike the PDP-11). 

How about just using the m4 macro processor or /lib/cpp?  Given the
UNIX philosophy of making separate tools work together, I'm not
surprised that a built-in macro facility isn't considered something
essential to an assembler.

Besides, I see little educational value in students writing humungous
assembly language programs with huge macros.  I see greater value in
their writing C programs and linking them with selected functions coded
in assembly language.  I even see value in giving them the assembled
output of the C compiler and telling them to speed it up by 50% (or
flunk).

Assembly language is just one aspect of the big picture and ought to
be treated as such.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi         UUCP:  {ihnp4,seismo}!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi