jmleonar@crdec-vax2.arpa (05/29/87)
Jim Cottrell, replying to Ben Cranston's message sez... > However, > the one main reason to keep doing so is that assembly language is > *fundamental to what a computer really is*. I disagree. Assembly language is NOT "fundamental to what a computer really is", the machine architecture is! I've always felt that there has been far much confusion between the machine and it's assembly language. If the difference isn't stressed - machine vs. the language selected to "drive" the machine - it becomes that much more difficult to switch machines. From this point of view, the choice of language becomes less important (and this causes a lot of the heat noticed on the net), as long as the language "mates" well with the machine. In essentially all cases, assembly language routines that are correctly written are the fastest. They are probably also the slowest to write, optimize and debug. Oh yes, I forgot to include the costs of MAINTAINING such routines... > Yet, just because assembly is becoming rarer is no grounds for > ignoring it altogether. CS stands for Computer *Science*, not Computer > *Applications*. The purpose of a CS degree or education is to > familiarize the student with an appreciation/overview of all the major > fields that have to do with computers and some of the mathematical > theory behind it. That is what makes us different from say, Cobol > programmers. My, aren't we being chauvinistic here? While I fully appreciate the power and elegance (and necessity) of "CS for CS' sake" (I'm writing this at such an example), it is important to remember that essentially all of the bill-paying "customers" are interested in the Applications. COBOL programmers might be brain-dead, but their work is more widely used than much of that produced by the wizards! As I see it, it is a major responsibility of the CS folks to justify and integrate their ivory-tower work into the real world. The computer is still basically a tool, and the best tools allow those that use them to complete work that is otherwise difficult or impossible. True, a lot of work must be devoted into making and improving the tools, but blatant criticism of the wider world of applications is simply arrogance. Joe Leonard <jmleonar@crdec.arpa> Disclaimer: The views of my employer do not conform to my views, or to any accepted standard of logic that the Greeks thought up anyway...