Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cca!mirror!ima!johnl
From: johnl@ima.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Re: Assemblers
Message-ID: <827@ima.ISC.COM>
Date: 26 Dec 87 04:43:49 GMT
References: <816@ima.ISC.COM>
Sender: johnl@ima.ISC.COM
Reply-To: ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU!unisoft!gethen!farren (Michael J. Farren)
Organization: Sci-Fido - Unix in Oakland
Lines: 27
Approved: compilers@ima.UUCP

In article <816@ima.ISC.COM> watmath!looking!brad (Brad Templeton) writes:

>The list is shrinking, but we should still remember that today, in terms
>of customer demand, most software is written in assembler.

Considering software technology solely as a function of total units sold
of particular programs is highly misleading.  All of the examples you have
given of best-selling software written in assembler were designed to run on
8-bit machines, specifically the Z-80/8080 and the 8088 of the IBM PC.  For
these machines, efficient HLLs either are not, or were not (Lotus, MS-DOS),
available.

If and when compilers of sufficient efficiency become available, as they
are beginning to for the IBM PC, I would expect the use of assembler-
only coding to drop significantly.  I doubt, for example, that the
same analysis, if made in five years, would show the same results.

-- 
Michael J. Farren             | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just 
{ucbvax, uunet, hoptoad}!     | dogmatize it!  Reflect on it and re-evaluate
        unisoft!gethen!farren | it.  You may want to change your mind someday."
gethen!farren@lll-winken.arpa |     Tom Reingold, from alt.flame 
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