Re: [OT] Gibson's vision of computer languajes

[Dave Poirier <instinc@users.sf.net>]

Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote:
> Dave Poirier wrote:
> 
>> Jano wrote:
>>
>>> I'm pretty sure many of us know Steven Gibson. Today I've tested a 
>>> freeware from him. In the instructions page he made these statements:
>>>
>>> "All of my programs are so small and so fast because I write only in 
>>> the one, true, computer language: Assembly Language. All other 
>>> languages reduce to assembly language, but they lose a lot in the 
>>> translation. (Judge for yourself.)"
>>>
>>> "People who can't program in assembly language (just about everyone) 
>>> get really annoyed with me when I talk about how much better it is 
>>> than their pet language. But it's not my fault if they just say they 
>>> care about quality."
>>>
>>> My blood is boiling. I want only to share to cool me a little down.
>>
>>
>> Well, I'm an assembly freak, and I must say that I pretty much agree 
>> with him <g>.  While assembly does create software that are small and 
>> fast, and can be made as reliable as any other programming language 
>> (using proper development techniques), portability can be applied at 
>> best by rewriting the entire thing using a generic algorithm.
> 
> ...
> 
>> EKS - Dave Poirier
> 
> 
> There is nothing wrong with "liking assembler", but you're foolish to
> believe that assembler programs "can be made as reliable as any other
> programming language".  Having used operating systems written in
> assembly language (anyone remember Honeywell's GCOS8/DPS8?), you
> would not want to go back there!  Using those systems I learned very
> quickly to save my edit session every few minutes (if not seconds),
> because it was not unusual for the system to crash between 1-5 times
> a day. There were always new oodles of assembler patches being issued
> to correct prior patches and on and on it went. MULTICS and UNIX were
> a big advance in reliability because they went AWAY from assembly
> language. Now it is a good time to move away from C to Ada for
> operating systems (note that BSD and Linux are still written in
> C, not C++).
> 
> The argument you make is the exact same argument that C/C++ programmers
> make WRT Ada. They always state "using proper development techniques",
> but the underlying problem is that this is subject to human error and
> is not reliably done. It kinda reminds one of the
> saying "the pathway to hell is paved with good intentions".

True, the reliability of an assembly built project is largely based on 
the skills of the human writing the code and testing it.  Since humans 
are due to fail, so is the software.  Why would I otherwise learn Ada95 
myself if it wasn't for this exact reason?

I do like to believe that programmers should be skilled professionals 
rather than script kiddies.  Note I'm not calling you or anybody else in 
this channel as such, but we do notice that most of the asm programmers 
still programming in asm are young uneducated people, at least those 
visible in the Open Source community.

Software development techniques have evolved a great deal since those 
times that you refer, some of those techniques and tools can be used not 
only in higher level language like Ada, but also by lower level 
languages like Assembly.

By combining skilled assembly programmers and those new development 
techniques, as well as an all time careful approach, I do believe it is 
possible to create tighter/smaller programs that are as reliable (read: 
not developed in the same amount of time nor with the same resources) as 
their higher level counterparts.

EKS - Dave Poirier