bearophile wrote:
Walter:
The inline assembler can't do everything a standalone assembler can, but
what it does it does well enough, and is a pleasure (to me) to use.
The D inline assembler has another purpose you have not underlined: it's a
didactic tool to learn some assembly without nothing but the normal D
compiler. Delphi too allows inline asm, and I know some people that have used
just that to learn and use assembly.
Yes, you're right.
The evolution of species is not a constant flow of changes. After a period of
quick change, species often froze in many of their characteristics, and then
they adapt only in a small ways, or in "alternative" ways, while keeping most
of their original design. In the meantime new species branch sideways, and
most of the actual fundamental changes happen during this side branching.
To me something quite similar seems to happen to software technology: people
that program in assembly seems furiously attached to ancient ways to use
assembly, even if new and new languages and their ecosystems have invented
better and better ways to program.
There is not much intrinsic in the asm language that forces people to not
define and use a good type system on asm instructions to catch programming
bugs, to indent asm code well, to use a modern IDE on asm code, and so on.
But most asm programmers seem uninterested in those new tools and new
possibilities. All this is quite fascinating.
In that vein, it is exceedingly miserable that assemblers do not accept struct
declarations in C format. I always have to painstakingly translate them, and
double check that all the offsets and alignment are correct. What a pain.
