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From: wsmith@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Assembly or ....
Message-ID: <5200034@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 23 Nov 88 04:49:00 GMT
References: <1388@aucs.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:aucs.UUCP:1388:m.cs.uiuc.edu:5200034:000:2229
Nf-From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!wsmith    Nov 22 22:49:00 1988


>     Since this are Newsgroups that mainly programmers write I
>would like to ask them if it really worth it to spend time to
>learn assembly language.

The answer to this question is definitely yes.  However, the rest of your
article is directed at the question: "Should I write my next important
project in assembly?", which I believe the answer should probably be no.

>I know that when you program in 
>assembly you loose the portability but you gain in speed.

This is not necessarily true.  Good compilers produce code approximately
equivalent to hand written code.  An excellent optimizing compiler
can produce code that is better in speed and size than what a competent
assembly language programmer wrote by hand.  The reason is that the compiler
does not need to maintain the assembly language, while the assembly language 
programmer does need to maintain the code.  As a result, the compiler can
perform contortions with the code that are nearly impossible to understand
or maintain that gain speed.

>I've been told also that there are some low-level operations
>that you just can't do in C or any other high level language.

But how often do you need to do those operations?  You can't make a 10
foot outside radius turn in your Mazda at 65 miles per hour, but how often
do you need to do that?

>Apart from this most of the commercial programs are written
>in assembly(Turbo Pascal etc.).Device drivers are also written in assemly.

I believe that far from "most" commercial programs are written in assembly.
High level languages increase the productivity of programmers too much to
ignore them.

>So why is everybody against assembly when many programs available are
>written in assembly?
>   I hope I'll get some answers from you guys !!

It is expensive to write assembly language code.  It is even more expensive
to maintain it.

>**************************************************************************
>The number of the beast is 80386|Andreas Pikoulas
>or 68030 ??                     |Acadia University
>***************************************************************************
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Smith
wsmith@cs.uiuc.edu
uiucdcs!wsmith