Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen
From: davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: using (ugh!  yetch!) assembler
Message-ID: <11699@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 2 Aug 88 13:10:46 GMT
References: <6341@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <60859@sun.uucp> <474@m3.mfci.UUCP> <11674@steinmetz.ge.com> <20921@beta.lanl.gov> <37406@linus.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 20

In article <37406@linus.UUCP> munck@faron.UUCP (Robert Munck) writes:

| Mixing languages is not a terrific idea if your program is to be
| maintained and enhanced over the years.  Languages change, too, and
| trying to keep up with diverging languages...

  A few words on that... One way to preserve portability is to get the
whole program working in C, and identify the problem areas. Then the
assembler output of C can be massaged by hand for efficiency. By always
starting with compiler output you avoid having the C source and the
assembler source out of phase to the point where the C won't work
anymore.

  I know this is clumsy, that's why I recommend it. It will make you
think before spending a lot of time trying to make small gains in
performance, as opposed to rethinking the whole algorithm.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me