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From: gore@nucsrl.UUCP (Jacob Gore)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Assembly Language
Message-ID: <3240001@nucsrl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Aug-87 14:17:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: nucsrl.3240001
Posted: Mon Aug 10 14:17:53 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Aug-87 01:37:07 EDT
References: <892@edge.UUCP>
Organization: Northwestern U, Evanston IL, USA
Lines: 28

/ nucsrl:comp.misc / brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) / 11:29 am  Aug  9, 1987 /
>Assembler is useful, and in spite of what people say, it sometimes is the
>only way to do a job.

Yes, but not in the examples used below.

>Microsoft Basic would not be the #1 software product in history if it were
>not written in assembler.
>
>Lotus 1-2-3 would not be the top dollar software product in history if it
>were not written in assembler.
>
>Lotus Release 2 was still written in assembler.  Release 3 is planned to be
>written in C, but that's still not out and it's going to be a lot bigger and
>a lot slower than Release 2.

All of these could have been easily implemented in an HLL, if it wasn't for
the fact that they had to have suitable performance on a machine/OS
combination that forced ad hoc limitations on the software.

Yes, sometimes it is beneficial to hand-code certain pieces of some software
in an assembly language for a machine.  When the running profile of the
software indicates which parts of the system need speeding up, then one goes
in to speed them up, and if that means recoding some of them in assembler, so
be it.  Coding the rest of the software in assembler is a waste of time.

Jacob Gore				gore@EECS.NWU.Edu
Northwestern Univ., EECS Dept.		{gargoyle,ihnp4,chinet}!nucsrl!gore