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From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Assembly Language
Message-ID: <1326@killer.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Aug-87 04:10:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: killer.1326
Posted: Wed Aug 12 04:10:40 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Aug-87 03:28:55 EDT
References: <892@edge.UUCP>
Organization: Bayou Telecommunications
Lines: 35

in article <892@edge.UUCP>, doug@edge.UUCP (Doug Pardee) says:
> Assembly language programming isn't "impossibly hard", and it *is* still
> widely used in the non-Unix world.  Regardless of what college professors
> and Unix fans would have you believe.  There are a lot of applications out
> there where portability is of no interest, but performance is critical.  For
> those applications, assembly is clearly the language of choice.

Yawn. I think this is where we were 8 months ago, when I first subscribed to
comp.misc at my new news site.

Yes, I've written thousands of lines of assembly language code (my current
project is hovering at about 5,000), and yes, I equate programming in assembly
language, with a trip to the dentist, or breaking one's arm... painful. I
suppose if you're using a processor like the 6809 or the 68000 it wouldn't be
so bad, but it's hell on drain-bramaged processors like the 8080/z80, 6502, or
on any RISC processor (just for fun, try a Pyramid 90x on for size... you have
to look up each instruction you use, in order to see if it supports the
addresing mode you want to use...). As far as maintainability, etc. are
conerned, assembly language is definitely more maintainable than BASIC (at
least, traditional BASIC, none of this new-fangled multi-character names
bull), but anything else beats it hands down. Testing? Forget it. Run the code
in your head, play computer. Gets easier after awhile, till you can spot the
problem almost right off, but never as easy as in "C". As for SIZE... I
estimate that my 5,000 lines of carefully crafted 6502 assembly language,
could be implemented inmuch less than 1,000 lines of "C" (at an equivalent
commenting and readability level, of course -- no stacking the deck HERE!).

Conclusion: I have to use it, because on an 8-bit micro the only alternative
is FORTH (the DEFINITION of unreadability!), but that doesn't mean I have to
like it!
--
Eric Green   elg%usl.CSNET     Ollie North for President:
{cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg      A man we can believe (in).
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