peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (08/13/87)
All of you people flaming me (and flaming the people flaming the people flaming me (and so on)) are totally missing the point. What I said was: "Don't express algorithms in assembly language." What most people seem to have seen is: "Don't use assembly language." That's (as many people have rightly pointed out) like saying "don't drive pickup trucks because cars handle better". Sometimes you need a pickup. Sometimes you need assembly. Mostly, however, all you get from the pickup or the assembly language is a sense of glowing accomplishment at identifying with the working class (in the case of the pickup) or the old-time hackers who didn't have anything better (in the case of the assembler). In any case da Silva's law #0x7FFE is still valid. When you are describing an algorithm you should be concentrating on clarity rather than hack value. you want to use the highest level code available. Unless the algorithm you're trying to explain is Forth's inner interpreter... then use PDP-11 assembly. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!seismo!soma!uhnix1!sugar!peter (I said, NO PHOTOS!)