Xref: utzoo comp.arch:5785 comp.software-eng:710
Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ubvax!ames!killer!elg
From: elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: using (ugh!  yetch!) assembler
Message-ID: <4966@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>
Date: 29 Jul 88 02:59:26 GMT
References: <60859@sun.uucp> <474@m3.mfci.UUCP> <2926@utastro.UUCP> <37014@linus.UUCP> <9763@eddie.MIT.EDU> <37247@linus.UUCP>
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In message <37247@linus.UUCP>, munck@linus.UUCP (Robert Munck) says:
 >from the commercial and military worlds.)  Real-world schedule and
 >funding pressures make it very unlikely that it would stay organized,
 >documented, and maintainable for very long after release.  After that,
 >it's a long, slow slide to certain death (death: the time when fixing
 >one bug introduces, on the average, 1+epsilon new bugs).
 >
 >There are a lot of personal computer products out there written in
 >assembler and doing well; companies dependent on such products have, in
 >effect, taken a very slow-acting poison.

 Note that, until recently, it was impossible to have a
 commercial-quality product written in a high-level language on a
 personal computer. 8-bit microcomputers such as the Z-80, 6502, or
 8088 are very difficult to generate reasonable code for.
 Microsloth(tm) took years to get their "C" compiler generating even
 reasonably efficient code, and it still could use a lot of
 improvement. However, from what I hear, Microsoft is saying that
 further optimization will require AI techniques and a more powerful
 machine than the 8088 (because of both the speed and memory
 requirements of such a compiler).

 It's easy for us, using high-powered minicomputers or 68000-based
 machines, to say "Using assembler is slow death". Heck, even a
 simplistic compiler for the 68000 can generate decent code (e.g. the
 Manx C68K compiler -- very small, very simple, does almost no
 optimizations, and the code is reasonable, though far from optimal).
 But the majority of the people in the PC world still are not so
 lucky....

 --
Eric Lee Green    ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg
          Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509              
       MISFORTUNE, n. The kind of fortune that never misses.