SemiOT: Mourning for Classic Computing

From: Master of all that Sucks <vance_at_ikickass.org>
Date: Wed Aug 15 00:31:00 2001

On Tue, 14 Aug 2001, Jeffrey S. Sharp wrote:

> On Tue, 14 Aug 2001, Douglas Quebbeman wrote:
> >
> > And I would not consider people writing in assembly language to be at
> > the bottom rungs
>
> Right! I've always wondered why so many of the other programmers I have
> met have held assembly language in such low esteem. Depending on the
> particular make/model of processor you're dealing with, it can be
> downright elegant.

I have the highest respect for assembler programmers. It's hard to do
well. It's just that I don't like the people who call themselves
programmers, but only know enough to patch something so they don't have to
spend their precious $35 on an activation code.

> I've always thought that one of the more simple assembly languages would
> be a great 'first language' for someone wanting to learn how to program.
> Who's with me?

I think S/360-S/370 assembler would work quite well. It starts out
exceedingly simple, then moves to variable length opcodes, variable word
length, four-level indirection, etc. Doesn't require it to do useful
stuff though. But I am a bit biased towards mainframes.

Peace... Sridhar

> --
> Jeffrey S. Sharp
> jss_at_subatomix.com
>
Received on Wed Aug 15 2001 - 00:31:00 BST