> > > > (how many college students today can
> > > > program in machine langauage or even Fortran?)
> > >How many will ever need to?
> > Regardless of whether you actually USE it in the project,
> > if you do not have an understanding of machine language,
> > then you can not write a good compiler.
On Mon, 21 Jun 2004, William Donzelli wrote:
> Yes, but writing compilers is a specialty.
Regardless of whether you actually USE it in the project,
if you do not have an understanding of machine language,
then you can not write a good "driver", or anything else
that directly addresses hardware.
Regardless of whether you actually USE it in the project,
if you do not have an understanding of machine language,
then you can not write a good operating system, or any
other system software.
Regardless of whether you actually USE it in the project,
if you do not have an understanding of machine language,
then you can not write a good game, or anything else that
needs to be efficient.
Regardless of whether you actually USE it in the project,
if you do not have an understanding of machine language,
then you can not do a good job of optimizing ANYTHING.
Regardless of whether you actually USE it in the project,
if you do not have an understanding of machine language,
then you can not do a GOOD job of programming anything.
Clancy and Harvey said,
"Nobody programs in assembly language any more, nor ever will again."
Neither of them has ever written a commercial product,
nor anything that I would consider to be a "real" program,
only stuff to teach an abstract concept of Computer Science.
I do not think that it is appropriate to teach recursion,
without teaching how the stack works!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred
Received on Mon Jun 21 2004 - 17:09:33 BST