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Assembly coding

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f0dder:
rjbull, Assembly coding doesn't really have anything to do with genius - just a lot of stubbornness. Like cutting down a tree with a kitchen knife.

Carol Haynes:
Assembly language is very useful if you want to write really efficient, fast compact code. It is a lot faster to execute than any compiled language. Trouble is most of the libraries available are written in compiled languages these days!

Edvard:
Like cutting down a tree with a kitchen knife.
--- End quote ---

No, more like growing the tree to withing 1/16 of optimal diameter (measured weekly), mining the ore to smelt to iron, carving a mold for a wide-blade axe head, melting the iron in a coal-fired blast furnace (coal pilfered from train wreck site in desert), pouring the mold, sharpening the axe with medium grit to a knife-edge and heating to proper temper, quenching in oil (of course), sharpening again with extra-fine to a razor-edge, taking the axe to the tree and stripping off one branch about 2" diameter, tamping the axe head onto the branch, taking a modest swing and...

chopping the sucker off at ground level with one whack.

That's assembly programming. You're right. It doesn't take genius. Just a bull-headed unwillingness to settle for a $12.99 fiberglass-handle job from Wal-Mart...

There's a hacking pun in here somewhere, I just know it... :)

brotherS:
 ;D

f0dder:
I've done assembly programming since... early/mid nineties, so I know the drill. Saying that it's faster than any compiled language is nonsense, that depends on the skill of the programmer. And the kind of naïve code written by people who do full-application asm programming tends to be worse than what today's C/C++ compilers can produce. Sad but true.

It used to matter a lot in the old days when compilers were lame and computers were slow, some of my Pascal applications from back then approach 50% assembly code. Today, it's mostly a waste of time, except for a few special areas where you can get some nifty speed improvements.

The people to blame are incompetent programmers, Borland's lousy compilers, programmers linking statically to MFC and VCL instead of dynamically, time-to-market, outsourcing, and lousy/incompetent component programmers (I'm sure Mouser will agree on this one).

Edvard, cute analogy - but looking at the so-called quality of the average assembly coder... I'd almost prefer Delphi code generation (and THAT is sloppy).

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