Is Assembly Language dead?
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In a scene computers have become fast to solve the performance issues. So why trouble ourselves in complexity of assembly language? But I sure it still has an importance in mission critical and real-time embedded systems. How much it is important in driver development and operating systems? So what you think, learning the assembly language would be foolishness?
Assembly language can be helpful in cracking softwares etc the best tool i know is ollydbg ollydbg makes assembly really interesting
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In a scene computers have become fast to solve the performance issues. So why trouble ourselves in complexity of assembly language? But I sure it still has an importance in mission critical and real-time embedded systems. How much it is important in driver development and operating systems? So what you think, learning the assembly language would be foolishness?
George_George keeps it alive [^], [^]. :-D
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
[My articles] -
In a scene computers have become fast to solve the performance issues. So why trouble ourselves in complexity of assembly language? But I sure it still has an importance in mission critical and real-time embedded systems. How much it is important in driver development and operating systems? So what you think, learning the assembly language would be foolishness?
Learn it because it's fun, and gives you a deeper understanding about what is going on under the hood. Knowledge is never bad!
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
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tisaracorner wrote:
But I sure it still has an importance in mission critical and real-time embedded systems
I would never write a mission critical system in assembler, that would be moronic. Assembler is far more fiddly and more likely to need bug fixing. embedded systems, perhaps, if they are really low level hardware. I'd imagine the main thing that uses assembler would be compilers.
tisaracorner wrote:
So what you think, learning the assembly language would be foolishness?
Yeah, unless you have a need for it, and unless you already know a few higher level languages really well, I'd say it's probably a waste of time.
Christian Graus No longer a Microsoft MVP, but still happy to answer your questions.
Christian Graus wrote:
I'd imagine the main thing that uses assembler would be compilers.
Maybe this is a semantic issue, but a compiler generates (amongst other things) assembly code. There is little or no benefit in coding the compiler in assembly these days.
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
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George_George keeps it alive [^], [^]. :-D
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
[My articles]CPallini wrote:
George_George keeps it alive
I think he should get his own forum :) On the plus side, he does not ask stupid questions, just a helluva lot of them! ;P
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 4a out now (29 May 2008) -
George_George keeps it alive [^], [^]. :-D
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
[My articles]You made me laugh in my office. I like your character :-D
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George_George keeps it alive [^], [^]. :-D
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
[My articles]Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero .·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·. Microsoft MVP - Visual C++[^]
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Christian Graus wrote:
you already know a few higher level languages
I am experienced in few high level languages.
Christian Graus wrote:
unless you have a need for it
Not for any commercial purpose. To feel the happiness of create something :)
Surely you can find something more productive to do with your time. I imagine there are some small kudos with knowing assembler but I would think it has almost no commercial application. If you wrote something in assembler for a commercial app I would have you hung, drawn and quartered. Some poor bastard down the track has to support the app. So is it foolishness - absolutely!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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I've seen some +-300 ton presses programmed in assembly and Turbo Pascal so it would help to know it if you wanna go that route, However nowdays most stuff is controlled with PLC's that use FBD's... PS: Simatic S7 is a pain,
TommyTomToms wrote:
Simatic S7 is a pain
Very much so.
Sig history "You're an idiot." John Simmons, THE Outlaw programmer "I realised that all of my best anecdotes started with "So there we were, pissed". Pete O'Hanlon Unix is a Four Letter Word, and Vi is a Two Letter Abbreviation
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Learn it because it's fun, and gives you a deeper understanding about what is going on under the hood. Knowledge is never bad!
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
Accidentally I found Randall Hyde’s art of assembly language and made me think like this. I felt HLA is easy to learn.
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CPallini wrote:
George_George keeps it alive
I think he should get his own forum :) On the plus side, he does not ask stupid questions, just a helluva lot of them! ;P
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 4a out now (29 May 2008)leppie wrote:
I think he should get his own forum
Definitely.
leppie wrote:
On the plus side, he does not ask stupid questions
I agree.
leppie wrote:
just a helluva lot of them!
Without an apparent end (well he says it's for technical fun). :)
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
[My articles] -
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero .·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·. Microsoft MVP - Visual C++[^]
:sigh: I should know something was missed :sigh: :-D
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
[My articles] -
In a scene computers have become fast to solve the performance issues. So why trouble ourselves in complexity of assembly language? But I sure it still has an importance in mission critical and real-time embedded systems. How much it is important in driver development and operating systems? So what you think, learning the assembly language would be foolishness?
I wonder what will happen when no one wants to learn assembler anymore and the people who know it today die of old age. :P Same goes for C, just in a more distant future. We have more and more high level languages (such as C#) which make the developers more productive and the coding experience is better, but those languages are also built on top of something else, i.e. there's always something below. Who will create the core parts when everyone deals with high level stuff?
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I wonder what will happen when no one wants to learn assembler anymore and the people who know it today die of old age. :P Same goes for C, just in a more distant future. We have more and more high level languages (such as C#) which make the developers more productive and the coding experience is better, but those languages are also built on top of something else, i.e. there's always something below. Who will create the core parts when everyone deals with high level stuff?
Pawel Krakowiak wrote:
I wonder what will happen when no one wants to learn assembler anymore and the people who know it today die of old age. [Poke tongue] Same goes for C, just in a more distant future. We have more and more high level languages (such as C#) which make the developers more productive and the coding experience is better, but those languages are also built on top of something else, i.e. there's always something below. Who will create the core parts when everyone deals with high level stuff?
Sounds like it's straight from http://www.johntitor.com/[^] ;P
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 4a out now (29 May 2008) -
In a scene computers have become fast to solve the performance issues. So why trouble ourselves in complexity of assembly language? But I sure it still has an importance in mission critical and real-time embedded systems. How much it is important in driver development and operating systems? So what you think, learning the assembly language would be foolishness?
Assembly for the masses has been dead for a long time, however it will likely never go away as it is crucial for underlying performance in graphics, compiler writing, and many systems oriented tasks.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest Hemingway -
In a scene computers have become fast to solve the performance issues. So why trouble ourselves in complexity of assembly language? But I sure it still has an importance in mission critical and real-time embedded systems. How much it is important in driver development and operating systems? So what you think, learning the assembly language would be foolishness?
tisaracorner wrote:
So why trouble ourselves in complexity of assembly language?
Actually, assembly is the simplest programming language there is.
tisaracorner wrote:
So what you think, learning the assembly language would be foolishness?
Depends on what you are doing. I don't write any assembly these days, but when I debug I almost always use assembly view even if I have the symbols - it is pretty much the only way to know for sure what is going on.
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killabyte wrote:
but on the other hand it is HORRID to maintain legay code that isnt yours.
Hell is other people's code :)
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 4a out now (29 May 2008) -
tisaracorner wrote:
That means if you can’t find a library for your immediate purpose you will make it in assembly language. Isn’t?
Not really, I would use assembly language only for small peices of code that I want to be ultra fast or ultra small or both. Remember that a complier turns each line of code into several lines of assembler. Sometimes, because the compiler does not have the specialist knowledge that the programmer has, it includes lines that are not required in that particular project. So by writing it myself in assembler I can keep my code to the absolute minimum ammount of machine instructions. I could even check the speed of various instructions and write the very fastest possible peice of code (that's good fun). But do not be fooled into thinking that all assembler is fast and small, even a medium sized project will be faster and smaller if written in a high level language. This is becasue a human cannot keep much code in their head at any one time, so their code quickly becomes as wasteful as a compilers, or even more so.
tisaracorner wrote:
What you feel its importance in developing new technologies like Bluetooth?
I use Bluetooth, but I use other peoples code to control it and I have no idea if it is written in assembler - sorry. I just use their libraries. My embedded systems have to control hardware and it is often time critical - that's really the only use for assembler I have these days. If you would like to try a bit of assembler have a look at the company Microchip, they make PIC processors which are really easy to get up and running, you just need a crystal and a power supply and there is loads of development kit available for them. You could write a small application (like flashing an LED) in C then re-write it in assembler. But only do it if you want to for fun :-D
Ali
Alison Pentland wrote:
Microchip, they make PIC processors
I regularly program PICs and design hardware for them to run in to interface with other hardware including computers. I ALWAYS use assembly for coding with PICs. I've tried various flavours of C and even Basic, but I find it far more intuitive to keep the code as low level as possible when the purpose is really to control hardware. This probably applies to programming on the PC too. If you're communicating with or controlling hardware then assembler is probably the best tool - but if it's talking with the OS or providing a GUI, a higher level language is going to do it far better. An ongoing project of mine is to write a C# style interface for programming PICs - one day it might get finished!?!
Dave
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Alison Pentland wrote:
Microchip, they make PIC processors
I regularly program PICs and design hardware for them to run in to interface with other hardware including computers. I ALWAYS use assembly for coding with PICs. I've tried various flavours of C and even Basic, but I find it far more intuitive to keep the code as low level as possible when the purpose is really to control hardware. This probably applies to programming on the PC too. If you're communicating with or controlling hardware then assembler is probably the best tool - but if it's talking with the OS or providing a GUI, a higher level language is going to do it far better. An ongoing project of mine is to write a C# style interface for programming PICs - one day it might get finished!?!
Dave
DaveyM69 wrote:
I ALWAYS use assembly for coding with PICs.
I can completely understand that. I generally use C but it really frustrates me that the compiler does not always do things the way I would and I find myself trawling through the listing file to check what code it has generated. This was particularly bad for me when I first started writting embedded C. Now I am a bit more relaxed, but I still prefer assembler in many ways. My main problem with assembler is that I miss the libraries, things like floating point arithmetic and printf are sssooo handy. ;) But the main reason I have answered you is that its great to know there is another PIC programmer out there on Code Project :cool:
DaveyM69 wrote:
C# style interface for programming PICs
:cool: Best of Luck :cool:
Ali
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In a scene computers have become fast to solve the performance issues. So why trouble ourselves in complexity of assembly language? But I sure it still has an importance in mission critical and real-time embedded systems. How much it is important in driver development and operating systems? So what you think, learning the assembly language would be foolishness?
You're correct in that it's rarely used for any commercial development anymore, but by no means is learning assembly foolish. It can be incredibly useful when debugging, as you can see exactly what *is* going on and not just what the source-level debugger *says* is going on. Not to mention you won't always have source code or symbols available when debugging. If you want some good examples of this, check out Mark Russinovich's blog[^]
