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 X-Google-Thread: 10db24,4cf070091283b555 X-Google-Attributes: gid10db24,public From: "Tim Behrendsen" Subject: Re: What's the best language to learn? [was Re: Should I learn C or Pascal?] Date: 1996/08/18 Message-ID: <01bb8d2b$b763c5e0$32ee6fce@timhome2>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 174942593 references: <4u7hi6$s2b@nntp.seflin.lib.fl.us> <01bb8950$2c8dcc60$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com> <4urmvu$dfp@solutions.solon.com> <01bb89f1$31be4f60$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com> <4ut1sv$ngv@solutions.solon.com> <01bb8a24$88d46fe0$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com> content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 organization: A-SIS mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer Date: 1996-08-18T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar wrote in article ... > i"Well, the thing is that real honest-to-goodness assembly is just > not that difficult to learn, and that has built-in practical > aspects to it." > > That seems false for many modern RISC architectures, and as ILP becomes > more and more of a factor, the instruction level semantics will become > more and more complex. Actually, RISC is usually easier to learn, just because the instructions sets are more orthogonal. Now, optimizing RISC machines may be harder, but that's a different issue. The point is not to learn assembly because they will be using it every day, the point is to learn it so they can better understand what computers really are, and how they work. You simply can't get the same "Ah-HA! *Now* I understand!" experience from programming in a HLL that you can from programming assembly. -- Tim Behrendsen (tim@airshields.com)