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

["Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@home.com>]

Dave Poirier wrote:

> Marin David Condic wrote:
>> "Dave Poirier" <instinc@users.sf.net> wrote in message
>> news:3C8503D9.30209@users.sf.net...
>>
>>> In my opinion, Assembly is the best suited language for any project, but
>>> our society is unfortunately based on money, and to be commercially
>>> viable assembly must of then be traded for less human-time consuming
>>> alternatives.
...
>> Why do you think assembly language is the best suited language for any
>> project? Most people would contend that assembly is occasionally 
>> necessary
>> to accomplish things that can't be done (easily) in a high level 
>> language,
>> but that it is to be avoided because of its developmental 
>> inefficiency, high
>> probability of injecting errors and difficulty of maintenance. I'm 
>> curious
>> as to what reasons you'd give to go against the conventional wisdom.
...
> 
> I think there is really only one thing that could explain why I value 
> more assembler than other languages, it's that I probably value more the 
>  time the machine spend executing the code than the time the human spend 
> writing the code.

...
 > EKS - Dave Poirier

If you're young, you can afford to spend time being "nostalgic". But that's
a different angle than saying "assembler is the best tool for the job". As
you get older, you will get more concerned with correct results. You will
not care that CPU cycles are wasted. The important thing is are you wasting
your OWN cycles?

By way of illustration, I would much rather have Windows-2010 on my desktop

running sluggishly (if necessary) as long as it was reliable and secure.
Being fast, doesn't buy me anything if I keep losing time and work because
of crashes and inept programs/security. Sluggish I'll accept, because I
know that by this time next year, new CPUs will be available at low cost,
for me to upgrade to. It is now becoming easier to throw money at hardware,
than it is to get good quality software.  It is easier to buy faster equipment,
than it is to hire good software engineers.

That is why I for one, have embraced the "Ada way". My time spent writing
new Open Sourced software is much better spent getting it right, and getting
the quality. Call me old fashioned, or inept if you like, but I do like the
having the compiler straightening me out, when I need it. It saves me a
great deal of my OWN limited time.

Who really cares about idle/overworked CPUs? I am the master of my CPU, and
not slave to it's needs. Crack the whip on the CPU and make it earn its keep!

Caveat: I am not saying that you never have to be concerned about CPU budgets
in certain applications. But in the run-of-the-mill PC desktop case, it often
is the least of your concern outside of semi-realtime media based programming.

-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg