On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Walter Bright <newshou...@digitalmars.com>wrote:
> On 12/19/2011 11:52 AM, ddverne wrote: > >> On Sunday, 18 December 2011 at 07:09:21 UTC, Walter Bright wrote: >> >>> A programmer who doesn't know assembler is never going to write better >>> than >>> second rate programs. >>> >> > You are going to be a better C, C++, or D programmer if you're > comfortable with assembler. > In my university the assembler course was a weeder course. If you passed it you got in to second year (750 entrants, 150 openings). My point is being comfortable with assembler is likely an effect not a cause. If you have the motivation and skills to pick up assembler in a semester then you are probably going to be a better programmer in the end simply because of your motivation and skills, not necessarily from knowing assembler. OTOH my first exposure to programming was hand assembly of machine code on a MIKBUG based SWTPC. When I used an actual assembler it was, "thank you gxd for making my life a whole hell of a lot easier!" C was the next step in ease. You mean I don't have to actually keep track of every register's content? And so on up the tree of abstraction I went. In the end, this progression has been extremely beneficial in visualizing how all that abstract source code translates down into machine code. Memory allocation, speed and size optimization, etc. etc. make a lot more sense when you know how the machine behaves at a fundamental level. And on the other-other hand, the bottom line is this. Wetware causes the problems in sw development. How can a language feature help fix or prevent those problems? And of course all that balanced against the need for some developers to break the speed limit. John
