Assembly or ....

[Robert Skinner]

In article <1961 at crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> orr at cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Fraser Orr) writes:
>In article <729 at convex.UUCP> dodson at mozart.UUCP (Dave Dodson) writes:
>>I believe it is important to learn assembly language for some computer
>>because that is how you learn how computers _really_ work.  This knowledge
>>can help you program better in any language.
>
>Do you think it is important to understand how transistors work as well?
>The semantic level of most mircoprocessors is high enough that
>learning a HLL is pretty much sufficient these days (compare 68000 asm
>to C for example.) In the good old days, when men were men and transistors
>were valves, I think your statment was true. 

I have to agree with Dodson to some extent:  It is often useful to
understande how the *next* lowest level works.
	
	*  When I was designing logic, knowing how the individual
	transistors worked sometimes got me out of trouble.

	*  When I was writting assembly, it was useful to know about
	machine code, and how the processor actually executed the
	instruction.

	*  When I write "High Level" C, knowing how the underlying
	assembly works deduce the problem at times.  I can sometimes
	examine the assembly output and debug faster than looking at
	the C source.

	*  And now when I program in C++, I occasionally benefit from
	looking at the C output.

I think that they call this having a foundation in the basics.
I have seen this kind of foundation help students I've worked with,
and it has certainly helped me.

Robert Skinner
skinner at saturn.ucsc.edu
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