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From: mpl@sfsup.UUCP (M.P.Lindner)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Assembly Language
Message-ID: <1906@sfsup.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Aug-87 11:25:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: sfsup.1906
Posted: Fri Aug 21 11:25:42 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Aug-87 11:35:36 EDT
References: <892@edge.UUCP> <1305@faline.bellcore.com>
Organization: AT&T-IS, Summit N.J. USA
Lines: 18
Summary: programming costs

In article <1305@faline.bellcore.com>, gtchen@faline.UUCP writes:
> But I'm sure the actual piece of executable code in orders of magnitude
> smaller than the equivalent C program.  Also, I've assumed that since you
> did the program in assembly, then it will probably run faster.  For that
> matter, any program done in any HLL can be done in assembly and made to
> run as fast if not faster.

The "real goal" is the performance per dollar of a program.  I doubt that
the C program is "orders of magnitude" larger than the assembly.  In my
experience, C programs are usually 20-80% larger than a carefully designed
assembler program.  Obviously assembler can be made at least as fast, but I've
seen assembler programs shrink when rewritten in C as well.  The fact that
the program in question is 5 times smaller *source* wise means that it is
at least 5 times easier to maintain (since it takes <= 1/5 the time to read
and the complexity is most likely smaller).  If a few percent (or even a
factor of a few times) in size and performance are a hot issue, buy more memory
or a faster processor, it's cheaper than the programming effort to squeeze
out the performance, especially if the program must be ported and maintained.