"Nobody programs in machine language" (was: Modern

From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue Jun 22 17:40:35 2004

> I think the reason assembly isn't taught anymore is that industry (or
> academia) don't see it worth the time and effort to. Right now, the most

Actually, IMHO the fact that it's often not a good idea to code in
assembly language has _nothing_ to do with whether it should be taught (I
think it should).

Think of the other things that are taught in schools. How many people
actually _need_ to learn calculus? Or even algebra for that matter. Why
bother reading the classics of litterature?

In fact what do you think should be taught in schools.

I will agree that most programs (although not all) are better written in
high level languages. Even so, I think every competant programmer and
hardware deisgner should have learnt at least one machine code, and
should have written at least one machine code program. It is important to
understand that a program can be coded as a sequence of bytes/words, what
operations are commonly available in machine code, and so on. It _will_,
IMHO, make you a better programmer.

Actually, I think everyone should have a go at writing microcode too. And
should understnad at least one processor (however simple) to gate/ff level.

I don;t claim to be a programmer, BTW, but I have written machine code
and assembly language.


-tony
Received on Tue Jun 22 2004 - 17:40:35 BST