From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Dec 23 14:07:26 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id OAA14007 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Wed, 23 Dec 1998 14:07:26 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from namodn.com (namodn.com [207.33.107.203]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA13999 for ; Wed, 23 Dec 1998 14:07:23 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from robert@namodn.com) Received: from localhost (robert@localhost) by namodn.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id OAA25585; Wed, 23 Dec 1998 14:11:14 GMT (envelope-from robert@namodn.com) Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1998 14:11:14 +0000 (GMT) From: Robert To: Gustavo Vieira G C Rios cc: David Wolfskill , eddie@silk.net, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD and C Programming In-Reply-To: <36805FBF.6C31DF5E@netshell.vicosa.com.br> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG It's such a hassle to program in machine language for a particular machine. Take DOS for instance. Using 32-bit memory extenders, you can run some decent programs, and actually take advantage of your memory.. took a long time for it to be available, too! But unfortunately, so much of DOS is machine language, it'd be a hassle ( and a waste of a machine :) to port. C is highly portable; machine lingo is not. Programming to the machine you're on is only useful for low-level drivers; ASM may be faster, but if you have a good C compiler and a fast machine, the functionality the OS will provide far outweighs the tons of machine language that goes down the drain when the machine becomes obsolete. -rob ( www.namodn.com ) ( robert@namodn.com ) On Wed, 23 Dec 1998, Gustavo Vieira G C Rios wrote: > Yeah, you are right, but this does not mean i am worng. > Your suggestion is what i told "known as many as possible from the > machine you are programming to" . No matter if it is virtual or "real > machine". And more, i believe that using a virtual machine is not > practice. > > > That's all folks. > > David Wolfskill wrote: > > > > >Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 00:43:32 -0200 > > >From: Gustavo Vieira G C Rios > > > > >if you wanna be a real programmer you should know the hardware you are > > >programming to, right ? > > > > I respectfully disagree. > > > > Consider, for example, that Donald Knuth's "The Art of Computer > > Programming" uses an reference machine that doesn't really exist (though > > I'm sure folks have written emulators for it... after he wrote the > > book(s)). > > > > Best suggestion I have is to find a problem that you need to solve, and > > for which a (set of) program(s) written in C might reasonably be considered > > a viable approach to solving it. Look at good code as a starting-point; > > try /usr/src/*, for example. Often, I've found that starting by > > figuring out how to make a least-intrusive change to an existing program > > can be quite instructive. (Then again, sometimes what the program > > really *needs* is to be gutted & re-constructed from the ground up. > > Experience can help you distinguish the two cases.) > > > > Start small; build on that. Revise your building-blocks until they're > > reliable. > > > > Caveat: I don't write code for a living (usually); I do sysadmin work. > > I have written code for a living, though, and have been known to do so > > somewhat recently. > > > > david > > -- > > David Wolfskill UNIX System Administrator > > dhw@whistle.com voice: (650) 577-7158 pager: (650) 371-4621 > > -- > +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ > " ... Overall we've found FreeBSD to excel in performace, stability, > technical support, and of course price. Two years after discovering > FreeBSD, we have yet to find a reason why we switch to anything else" > -David Filo, Yahoo! > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message