Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!hplabs!sdcrdcf!ism780c!dougl
From: dougl@ism780c.UUCP (Doug Leavitt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: frustration, frustration..
Message-ID: <8381@ism780c.UUCP>
Date: 22 Dec 87 20:26:32 GMT
References: <2166@crash.cts.com> <4794@well.UUCP>
Reply-To: dougl@ism780c.UUCP (Doug Leavitt)
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp., Santa Monica CA
Lines: 51

In article <4794@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes:
>In article <2166@crash.cts.com> steelie@pro-charlotte.cts.com writes:
>>Is there anyone out there that programs in assembly on the Amiga
>>or am I just looking in the wrong places?
>
>	Mark Riley, author of Sonix, ...
>programs *exclusively* in assembler.
>
>	However, I think a major part of his wizard talent is that he's
>cooked up his own version of the stdio library for assembly.  The reason C
>programming is so 'easy' to us is that a lot of the grunt work has been done
>for us.  The startup code, the library interfaces, the I/O libraries, etc.
>have all been written by the compiler vendors and provided to us.  Thus,
>it's trivial for us to open a file, parse our arguments, call the Amiga OS,
>etc.

I know I can add more light to this subject.  Mark Riley and Dan Wolf
have both been good friends for some time (as I am to understand).  When
it came time for Dan to start on the Book "Assembly Language Programming
for the Amiga" he got in contact (or had been in contact) with Mark about
the subject.  As a result many of the ideas that Mark has or probably even
uses to some degree in his own work ended up in the book.

Much of Mark's ideas include simpler versions include files, a good set
of routines and macro's to code with, and the understanding that amiga.lib
is unnecessary for coding assembly language programs.

>	For assembly programmers, none of this exists, and so they are faced
>with a more gargantuan task than the C people.  Except Mark....
>
>	And no, I don't think you could cajole the source out of him.

As I have mentioned a couple of times before, now that Dan's and my book
is being pressed, assembly programmers won't have such a gargantuan task
ahead of them.  The book provides a large number of examples, reduced
include files, useful macro's and subroutines to specifically make it
easier programming Amiga assembly code.  Now that I have had a chance to
work on the book with Dan, and write soem code in His and Mark's style,
I wouldn't code back to the Commodore include file organization for anything.
It is far more complex than it really needs to be.

What can I say, I write in C a lot (I write C compilers for a living),
I program in assembly anytime I think it's necessary, and there is only
one style that I use on the Amiga.  Dan and Mark have one convert and I'm
glad that I saw the light.  (Hmm.... Sounds like preaching.  :) ).

	Anyways, stay tuned.....
	Doug Leavitt
	Minister, School of Assemblitology		:)
	dougl@ism780c.isc.com
	{ sdcrdcf, oliveb, uunet } !ism780c!dougl