From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: *** X-Spam-Status: No, score=3.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, RATWARE_MS_HASH,RATWARE_OUTLOOK_NONAME autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fc89c,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gidfc89c,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,baaf5f793d03d420 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Tim Behrendsen" Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal?] Date: 1996/08/12 Message-ID: <01bb8808$5a2dfda0$32ee6fce@timhome2>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 173628626 references: <01bb846c$e51df220$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com> <4ug4eh$qn8@zeus.orl.mmc.com> <01bb86f5$f7f8ae40$32ee6fce@timhome2> <4uk67k$ii2@solutions.solon.com> <01bb87d2$1752b9c0$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com> <320E742A.7288@online.no> content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 organization: A-SIS mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-08-12T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Alf P. Steinbach wrote in article <320E742A.7288@online.no>... > Tim Behrendsen wrote: > > > > Of course you can enter constants in different bases, but > > that doesn't affect the code that's generated. The entire > > *point* of assembler is to be a 1-to-1 corresponence. Otherwise, > > it would be a HLL. > > Sorry to intrude again after I opted out when the discussion polarized > (I've been lurking in the shadows, though). But this is sort of funny. > The assembler language I now know best is x86 for early x86 processors > (386). Modern x86 assembly does *not* correspond 1-to-1 to machine > code, as P.S. correctly points out. But for the wrong reasons! > > Many high-level constructs and ideas have migrated down to assembler > languages, like the concepts of defining datatypes, symbolic constants, > routines with typed parameter lists, if-then-else and other flow-control > constructs, and so on, including direct support for OOP in Borland's > TASM assembler. A modern assembler program has a syntactical structure > much the same as HLL program -- however, the programmer is free to > write everything as one long, grey mass of pure instructions with the > structure embedded as jump instructions and so on, just as you can in C. > For the first fumbling steps, this gray mass is the relevant subset. Heck, 360 assembler had macros and pseudo-ops; the general point is that the purpose of assembler is to code machine language without having to actually look up the codes yourself. -- Tim Behrendsen (tim@airshields.com)