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=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,2353cc2ebdf8fc4a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-03-06 17:00:36 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!luth.se!psiuk-p2!psiuk-p3!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: [OT] Gibson's vision of computer languajes Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 09:46:39 -0500 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: References: <3C84057E.8020504@users.sf.net> <3C8503D9.30209@users.sf.net> <3C85AA9A.7050201@users.sf.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 1015426001 26395 136.170.200.133 (6 Mar 2002 14:46:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 6 Mar 2002 14:46:41 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:20879 Date: 2002-03-06T14:46:41+00:00 List-Id: Well, I can't hardly argue with that. :-) Seeing the challenge as creating an artistic thing of beauty negates any of the engineering arguments against that technique. I used to know an artist back in college who did these very large paintings that usually consisted of a monochrome background with some squiggly lines on them of a different color. He'd labor for days/weeks with oil paint, carefully getting the monochrome background absolutely smooth and consistent in color & texture. It was really impressive that he could get it to look just like the shiny paint job on a new car - all by hand & with relatively primitive equipment. But Detroit was getting the same appearance (or better) in a fraction of the time and cost. Would you buy the car that was painted by the artist rather than the computer-controlled spraying equipment? You might if money was no object. It might amuse you that you got the same paint job as a Ford Escort - but all laboriusly done by hand. But that would mean that only a very small number of people with lots of money could have cars like that. I won't say it has no value to do software entirely in assembler - especially if viewed as an artistic endeavor. Its just that people don't buy software to marvel at how perfectly it squeezes out every last nanosecond of execution time or every last byte of memory. They buy it to get a job done. Hence they want a reliable, affordable solution to their problems - not a work of art. Code bloat, OTOH, is a different issue. I'll agree that lots of software is designed inefficiently and includes thousands of features that are interesting from a marketing perspective, but don't really move the mission forward. Sometimes I just want to type up some text and a command line interface & glass-teletype would do the job just as well as a really spiffy GUI based program that consumed megabytes of my disk drive. But I don't see that as an Assembler versus HLL issue. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Dave Poirier" wrote in message news:3C85AA9A.7050201@users.sf.net... > > 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. > > Lately I started considering myself more of an artist than a programmer, > which is probably why I see the beauty in pure binary and take pleasure > in counting cpu cycles and bytes of memory used. For me, a program is > "good" if it does the job without failing, a program is "nice" if it > does the job fast and still does it "good", and a program is "awesome" > if it's using one of the best sequence of instructions possible and fits > in tight places while achieving the set goal. > > I'm happy when I get a program done in HLL, but I'm not satisfied. I'm > happy and satisfied if I get a program done in assembly and I know it's > the smallest/fastest thing I could create. > > I just keep seeing all we could do with those computers we had in the > '80s and read about what was done in the '60s and '70s (I wasn't there > back then), and I find it amazing at the amount of work that could be > done on those slow beasts. Now we seem to have each a supercomputer > sitting on our desk and we seem to be barely able to edit a text document. > > Sure, the document is now fitting in a page, that we actually "see" as > it will be printed, and some other stuff, but when I come to think about > what the cpu actually execute, I just see billion of wasted cycles. > Instead of improving programs, ppl buy bigger computers. > > sorry for rambling on, hope I didn't confuse anybody (sorry for my > english also). > > EKS - Dave Poirier >