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: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a
X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public
X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
X-Google-Thread: 109fba,baaf5f793d03d420
X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public
X-Google-Thread: fc89c,97188312486d4578
X-Google-Attributes: gidfc89c,public
X-Google-Thread: 10db24,4cf070091283b555
X-Google-Attributes: gid10db24,public
From: "Tim Behrendsen" <tim@airshields.com>
Subject: Re: What's the best language to learn? [was Re: Should I learn C or
 Pascal?]
Date: 1996/08/19
Message-ID: <01bb8ded$c55ea3a0$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 175129425
references: <01bb89f1$31be4f60$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com>
 <4v1pnf$8du@zeus.orl.mmc.com>
 <01bb8c70$8f711800$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com>
 <32187C76.41C67EA6@ceco.ceco.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: 1996-08-19T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


John Hobson <jhobson@ceco.ceco.com> wrote in article
<32187C76.41C67EA6@ceco.ceco.com>...
> Tim Behrendsen wrote:
> <snip>
> 
> > I'm not sure how this thought that "assembly is hard" came
> > about.  The only thing I can think of that so few people learn
> > assembly nowadays that they think it is all black magic, and
> > anything with mystery is assumed to be hard.
> <more snippage>
> 
> I can certainly tell you why I think that assembler is hard -- it's
> because assembler is so long winded.  If you want to write the
> equivalent of a = b / c; in assembler, it takes about 5 or 6 lines.
> In *The Mythical Man-Month*, Fredrick Brooks says that the best gauge
> of programmer productivity is lines of code written per <time period>.
> Since assembler takes so many more lines to do something than (say) C
> does, it at least appears harder because it takes longer.

I think Brooks' point is to measure relative programmer
productivity in the same language, not different languages.  What
is it the average programmer produces; like, 100 lines/month
of fully debugged code or some low number?  Obviously, it's
not the amount of typing that influences productivity.

In fact, let's *dramatically* increase productivity and move
to APL!  Heck, I remember a friend of mine wrote a "moon rocket
lander" game in 1 line of APL on a dare.  A very *long* line,
mind you...

> As Tim also says:
> > Because I've found that people tend to stick with the first
> > [dare I use the word] paradigm that they are introduced to.
> > Everything else they learn will be compared against the first
> > thing they learn, and if the first thing they learn is the
> > step-by-step nature of the computer through a simple assembly
> > language (they don't have to start with the sophisticated RISC
> > chip on the planet), then they'll always have that safe, simple
> > place to go back to when trying to understand more sophisticated
> > concepts.
> 
> I have had exposure to assembler (IBM BAL on a 370 -- BAL standing for
> Basic Assembly Language), and I feel towards it much as Martin Luther
> felt towards monasticism.  After he broke with Rome, Luther damned
> monasteries and all that they stood for, but he also said that he was
> glad that he had had the experience.  IMHO, I have found it very useful
> at times to have some sort of idea of what the computer is actually
> doing.  I will also say that there are times when the best way to debug
> programs is to read the assembly listing.  However, I am very glad that
> I don't actually have to write assembler.  The first language I learnt
> was FORTRAN II, which was really just one step up from assembler
> (e.g., the FORTRAN arithmetic IF can easily be seen as a macro) and
> this gave me a good insight into what the machine was doing as it
> executed my code.  It also gave me an appreciation of the ease that
> things like true IF-THEN-ELSE structures gave the programmer.

I don't think anyone is advocating a return to assembly for
"real world" large-project purposes, only for educational
purposes.  I'll add you to the list of people who found it
to be of value early on.  :-)

-- Tim Behrendsen (tim@airshields.com)