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From: doug@edge.UUCP (Doug Pardee)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Assembly Language
Message-ID: <905@edge.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Aug-87 17:44:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: edge.905
Posted: Thu Aug 13 17:44:23 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Aug-87 06:49:15 EDT
References: <892@edge.UUCP> <7359@think.UUCP>
Organization: Edge Computer Corporation, Scottsdale, AZ
Lines: 47
Summary: Applications for assembly language

>Personal opinion: In the light of all of this, it is hardly clear that
>assembler is the language of choice *for an entire new program*, even
>where portability is of no concern.

In the Unix world, you can probably sell this idea.  In the non-Unix world,
little details keep getting in the way.  Details like the biggest micro-
controllers available (such as the 68HC11A8) only have 8K of ROM, and they
cost tons more than the more common 2K chips like the 8049.  And if the
company's gonna sell a few million of whatever the chips are going in,
programming it in assembly language will save tens of millions of dollars.

Details like there are a lot of IBM PC assembly programmers, so that if you
try to introduce a PC software package written in HLL, your competitors will
laugh all the way to the bank.  Ask the folks at Context/MBA how it feels
to be first-to-market via HLL coding, and then just as sales start popping
to get wiped off the software map by some speedy johnny-come-lately with a
stupid name like 1-2-3.  Oh sorry, can't ask 'em; they're out of business.

Details like how people and companies outside of the Unix world don't give
a hoot about keeping up with the "latest technology", they want to get the
cheapest computer they can that will do the job, and then hang on to it as
long as possible before going through the expense and hassle of replacing it.
And they'll only buy software that fits into their machine and runs quickly.

Details like projects that require a lot of performance out of low-bidder
hardware.  Such as a (genuine) flight simulator I worked on -- our visual
system drove 14 1000x1000 pixel displays, with images updated 30 times a
second.  The computers: 3 SEL 32/75s, equivalent to maybe large PDP-11s.

Details like projects that flat out push the state of the art for systems in
a given price range.  Projects which you can either do now in assembly or
wait 5 years for more powerful systems to show up in that price range.  The
Microsoft Flight Simulator could probably be done in C on the new Compaq 386
with only a couple of meg of memory.  5 years ago it was done on a 256K PC.

Computers and programming might be treated as some big game in Unixland, but
elsewhere it's serious business (as in $$$ business).  Assembly coding gives
the most "bang for the hardware buck", as the MBAs say.  The question then
becomes one of trading off those saved hardware bucks against software bucks
(higher paid programmers plus heavy cost if porting is ever needed).

In that tradeoff, HLLs generally win for "just for us" applications as long
as it looks like the program won't strain the limits of the current hardware
system.  Also where transportable code is critical.  But that still leaves a
*lot* of programs for which assembly is the lowest cost language.
-- 
Doug Pardee, Edge Computer Corp; ihnp4!mot!edge!doug, seismo!ism780c!edge!doug