Could you compile a program manually?
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There will always be a job for software people. That program written by the AI? The AI is no more able to solve the Halting Problem than you are. It cannot foresee the entire range of possible problems and world interactions. So that accounts package it just wrote will need to be fixed when it has mysteriously slow performance on your new SSD storage. It might crash on the first Tuesday after a leap second. Things will need to be fixed when the database and the web frontend disagree on the proper UTF-8 encoding. And it'll probably only work correctly when you use all Microsoft, Google or Apple products of the newest revision. God help the office that has a mixture or has to support old Windows XP desktops! I foresee AI programming making the easy things really easy, leaving us to solve the difficult problems. As an example, CPU design software has made a lot of what designers used to obsolete. But it hasn't resulted in fewer engineers: they just spend their time designing even larger and more complicated chips.
Zan Lynx wrote:
There will always be a job for software people. The AI is no more able to solve the Halting Problem than you are.
Once the AI is approximately as capable as a developer, it can fix its own bugs, which of course are unstated requirements as far as the machine is concerned. Just like with human developers, the fix may introduce new problems. Just like with human developers, the quality of the code may be high or low. The AI can also tinker with its own code. In the end game, an AI can replace us; first poorly, later better, finally completely. Remind me again why anyone with sense would work on such a program. It may seem ok when the goal is far away. I hope we wise up.
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Brandon T. H. wrote:
Is there some way to process a source-to-executable like a computer by hand?
Yes (well duh, computers can't compute anything that humans can't, they're just faster at it), and it's not even that hard (just time-consuming). Converting whatever-language source to assembly? Piece of cake. Assembling by hand? Conceptually simple, only requires looking things up in a table. Putting it in the right executable format? Ok that one is a little tricky to get right, but also not that hard.
Brandon T. H. wrote:
If so, could you point to some documents?
Sure. For x86+windows: Intel manuals[^] ModRM encoding (on sandpile.org)[^] PE 101[^]
Brandon T. H. wrote:
Could you also compile a device driver source to ".sys" or ".vxd"
I see no reason why this should be impossible.
Thank you. :cool:
Simple Thanks and Regards, Brandon T. H. Programming in C and C++ now, now developing applications, services and drivers (and maybe some kernel modules...psst kernel-mode drivers...psst). Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison
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remember me to get you a 5 when the vote system gets back online, you deserve it.
I'm brazilian and english (well, human languages in general) aren't my best skill, so, sorry by my english. (if you want we can speak in C# or VB.Net =p)
Sentenryu wrote:
when the vote system gets back online
What happened to that thing anyways :~, even though this has nothing to do with compiling by hand. It's been a while.
Simple Thanks and Regards, Brandon T. H. Programming in C and C++ now, now developing applications, services and drivers (and maybe some kernel modules...psst kernel-mode drivers...psst). Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison
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Yes, you just need to convert each line of source code into its object code equivalent. Once you have done that you build it into a binary file with a hex editor and, hey presto, Robert's your mother's brother.
One of these days I'm going to think of a really clever signature.
Thanks man.
Simple Thanks and Regards, Brandon T. H. Programming in C and C++ now, now developing applications, services and drivers (and maybe some kernel modules...psst kernel-mode drivers...psst). Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison
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Sage advice... Pssh. Ya junior code snot. I'm glad I'm not the only assembler dork out there. This is the sort of question asked by people who end up designing the compilers you all use.
My man, haha.
Simple Thanks and Regards, Brandon T. H. Programming in C and C++ now, now developing applications, services and drivers (and maybe some kernel modules...psst kernel-mode drivers...psst). Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison
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Sage advice... Pssh. Ya junior code snot. I'm glad I'm not the only assembler dork out there. This is the sort of question asked by people who end up designing the compilers you all use.
My man, ha ha.
Simple Thanks and Regards, Brandon T. H. Programming in C and C++ now, now developing applications, services and drivers (and maybe some kernel modules...psst kernel-mode drivers...psst). Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison
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You have exceeded your one-silly-question-a-day-in-the-Lounge limit.
Thanks for the info..
Simple Thanks and Regards, Brandon T. H. Programming in C and C++ now, now developing applications, services and drivers (and maybe some kernel modules...psst kernel-mode drivers...psst). Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison
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Brandon T. H. wrote:
Is there some way to process a source-to-executable like a computer by hand?
Only in a Chinese Room.
Yeah, Chinese people are crazy. It's like a drill sergeant yelling at you to think out a bunch of one's and zero's, instead of them telling you to do push-ups. Still doing this a programmer's nightmare. To the average person it's hell. :laugh:
Simple Thanks and Regards, Brandon T. H. Programming in C and C++ now, now developing applications, services and drivers (and maybe some kernel modules...psst kernel-mode drivers...psst). Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison
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You could, but why?
"Any sort of work in VB6 is bound to provide several WTF moments." - Christian Graus
It would help be able to do anything, just think how useful it would be. You would be able do anything just about any computer or machine, and what you program, works on about almost any piece of hardware, when you boot it. Like all of a suddenly the C language dies.
Simple Thanks and Regards, Brandon T. H. Programming in C and C++ now, now developing applications, services and drivers (and maybe some kernel modules...psst kernel-mode drivers...psst). Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison
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It would help be able to do anything, just think how useful it would be. You would be able do anything just about any computer or machine, and what you program, works on about almost any piece of hardware, when you boot it. Like all of a suddenly the C language dies.
Simple Thanks and Regards, Brandon T. H. Programming in C and C++ now, now developing applications, services and drivers (and maybe some kernel modules...psst kernel-mode drivers...psst). Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison
Brandon T. H. wrote:
just think how useful it would be
Not really at all from the stand point of time efficiency. I do trust that you do know what a compiler is.
Brandon T. H. wrote:
Like all of a suddenly the C language dies
And why would that be an issue? When a language becomes outdated and replaced with something new, the world still goes on, and code in any language can easily be rewritten in another language.
"Any sort of work in VB6 is bound to provide several WTF moments." - Christian Graus
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Ah, the memories! First did this when my computer had a 16 bit address bus and 8 bit op-codes and a total of 4K of RAM. Then I discovered there was something called a "compiler" and haven't had the urge to engage in this kind of masochism since.
Good choice! Unfortunately, when those specs were current, I didn't have a lot of choice. I could write an operating system and assembler, or I could watch a box of electronic components grow old and useless without actually doing anything. In the end, I did what was needed, wrote an OS and assembler in machine code, and pressed into paper tape form for posterity, then got a real job. It was fun, but I wouldn't care to do it again.
Will Rogers never met me.
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It would help be able to do anything, just think how useful it would be. You would be able do anything just about any computer or machine, and what you program, works on about almost any piece of hardware, when you boot it. Like all of a suddenly the C language dies.
Simple Thanks and Regards, Brandon T. H. Programming in C and C++ now, now developing applications, services and drivers (and maybe some kernel modules...psst kernel-mode drivers...psst). Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison
It would help be able to do anything, Nope, you would basically only be able to do what you already can using assembly. Though you might be able to get at some accidental error in the CPU's hardware. But that's probably undocumented. just think how useful it would be. Perhaps, though I'm not to sure about "Useful for what?" Crashing a CPU through using some code which is not designed to do something "useful". You would be able do anything just about any computer or machine, Definitely NOPE! You'll need to learn each and every family of CPU's machine codes. Unless by "any computer" you mean "only those with (say) the x86 instruction set. and what you program, works on about almost any piece of hardware, when you boot it. Again: Definitely NOPE! Again unless you mean only one set of CPU's are allowed, and even then only if the rest of the hardware is not too different from your original machine (e.g. a different GPU, other HDD connection type, etc.) Like all of a suddenly the C language dies. I don't think the C language would die due to this. If that was reason enough to kill C, then assembly would have done so long ago. And yes, machine code was the programming language at one time. You needed reams of operators to turn on/off banks of switches to perform the simplest of tasks. Then ASM was "invented" to make life easier for the programmer - so (s)he could remember something like "MOV" instead of C6(11000110) as the "instruction" to move (copy) data from one location to another. And then higher level languages like C was invented when it was noticed that programmes used the exact same group of asm instructions time and again (i.e. something like check value, goto,...) What you're after seems to be a reversion back to how it was in the 40's & 50's.
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Is there some way to process a source-to-executable like a computer by hand? If so, could you point to some documents? Could you also compile a device driver source to ".sys" or ".vxd" (depending whether you are developing for a non-NT or NT Windows operating system)?
Simple Thanks and Regards, Brandon T. H. Programming in C and C++ now, now developing applications, services and drivers (and maybe some kernel modules...psst kernel-mode drivers...psst). Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison
I've actually written a program purely in machine code. When it was run, it shut down and restarted my DOS system. I also had some coursework in programming languages, automata theory, and computer semantics. As far as getting books on the subject, well, you've heard of porting a program from one language to another? That's one form of manual compilation, if you aren't interested in duplicating exactly what the computer did. If you're trying to duplicate exactly what your favorite compiler did, forget it: you're free to see the sauasage, but the compiler makers do things that aren't necessarily in the books to make their products work "better" than their competitors', and they don't publish those tricks. Otherwise, type "compiler development" into your favorite search engine and see what pops out. Mind you, in order to do this you'll have to either create or locate a grammar for the language you plan to use, preferably one written in some version of Backus Normal Form (BNF) grammar symbols. When you're done, perhaps you could write another book? Thanks in advance :)
"Seize the day" - Horace "It's not what he doesn't know that scares me; it's what he knows for sure that just ain't so!" - Will Rogers, said by him about Herbert Hoover