peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (12/07/90)
OK, the debate seems to be stalemated now. The main points seem to be: It takes longer to program in assembly. Assembly programming is strongly correlated with dangerous coding practices Programs in high-level languages run slower and are larger. High level programming is strongly correlated with code bloat. Have I missed anything? I use the term "strongly correlated" to beg the question of whether it's the technique that encourages the problem or whether it's that people likely to write code with that problem are just naturally attracted to the technique. OK, so if code speed is a problem, or code size is a problem, go with ASM. Writing an arcade game in C is Computer Scientist Machismo. If the program is going to spend most of its time in the O/S or resident libraries, go with a high level language. Writing an editor in assembly is Computer Hacker Machismo. Dangerous coding practices and code bloat is to be just plain discouraged. I'm crossposting this to comp.lang.misc, and directing followups there, because that's where this sort of discussion belongs. For the folks in comp.lang.misc, portability isn't a concern because the programs involved are inherently system dependant. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>.