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From: chips@usfvax2.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.edu,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Teaching Assembler on VAX (BSD 4.3)
Message-ID: <770@usfvax2.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-May-87 13:28:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: usfvax2.770
Posted: Tue May 26 13:28:07 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 27-May-87 05:26:53 EDT
References: <351@aucs.UUCP> <588@maccs.UUCP> <234@brandx.rutgers.edu> <2794@felix.UUCP>
Organization: AT Engineering, Tampa, FL
Lines: 36
Xref: utgpu comp.unix.questions:2255 comp.edu:359 comp.lang.misc:409
Summary: assembler important to mechanics, but not drivers

In article <2794@felix.UUCP>, chuck@felix.UUCP (Chuck Vertrees) writes:
> [] Some of the responses I have seen seem to imply that assembler is not
> needed at all, and doesn't need to be taught.  I disagree.
> [] For the first two years in the real world (what ever that is), I wrote
> nothing but assembler.
> [Purpose of assembler course] to introduce students to yet another type of
> computer language that they may come across in their careers.

Amen.  Assembler-illiterate programmers become helpless when confronted with
compiler bugs and/or adb.  (Not to mention MS-DOS CodeView/SymDeb/Debug, which
are still in use.)

And to understand 80x86 memory models is to know 80x86 assembler.  (Please no
flames about the 80x86 architecture -- I hate it too!  But mechanics have to
fix even the badly engineered cars.)

> Using a macro package to hide some of this from you may be
> convenient, but if you still don't understand what is really happening,
> then that is dangerous, regardless of the language you may be using.

Right.  Perhaps students should only be allowed to use macros that they have
written themselves, thus eliminating "I don't know why, but it works".
 
> The mind set required for proper assembly language programming has carried
> over into the other languages I now use.

This is both a curse and a blessing.  I find that at times I must turn off
my internal "C to assembler translator" and either (1) let the compiler do the
work or (2) decide that this particular program doesn't need it.

Assembler -- can't live with it, can't live without it.

-- 
Chip Salzenberg		    Address: "{gatech,cbatt,akgua}!usfvax2!ateng!chip"
AT Engineering, Tampa, FL   Redress: "chips@usfvax2.UUCP"
"Use the Source, Luke!"	    My opinions do not necessarily agree with anything.