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From: Giuliano Carlini <giuliano@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with? [was: Re: Should I learn
 C or Pascal?]
Date: 1996/08/13
Message-ID: <32115234.7B0@ix.netcom.com>#1/1
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references: <31FBC584.4188@ivic.qc.ca>
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 <01bb853b$ca4c8e00$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com>
 <320b35a2.43769707@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
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 <320bf032.7193774@nntp.ix.netcom.com> <01bb8802$a5ff3a60$32ee6fce@timhome2>
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Date: 1996-08-13T23:12:51-05:00
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Tim Behrendsen wrote:
> 
> Mike Rubenstein <miker3@ix.netcom.com> wrote in article
> <320fe7f4.7066811@nntp.ix.netcom.com>...
> > I've probably been helped more by my knowledge of about 25 higer level
> > languages.
> >
> > Obviously, all other things being equal, it is better to know assembly
> > language that to not know it.  But all other things are seldom equal.
> > I suspect that most beginning programmers would gain much more from
> > learning some different HLLs.  Given a choice, I'd strongly recommend
> > one learn LISP, APL, Icon, or any of a few dozen other languages to
> > learning assembly language.

Every programmer should know assembler as their 2cnd or third language.
Okay, not recreational programmers, or those knocking together small
programs, but every one who puts together programs that are larger than
say 10K lines of code.

You don't need to write in it often, but you need it to be able to
debug competently.

There are far to many times I'm called in to help someone debug, when
it turned out to be a stupid compiler or system bug that a good
understanding of assembler would have spotted immediately.

There are times I need to dive into the compiler runtime, or into the
OS to debug my buggy code.

If you don't understand assembler, your reduced to trying one trivial
change to your program after another. When one finally works, you've
have no clue why. Then you can't document why some monstrous section
of code is the way it is. And that causes problems later on.

g