From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Thu Feb 14 22:15:27 2019 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 989C114E3D35 for ; Thu, 14 Feb 2019 22:15:27 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from phascolarctos@protonmail.ch) Received: from mail2.protonmail.ch (mail2.protonmail.ch [185.70.40.22]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "*.protonmail.ch", Issuer "SwissSign Server Silver CA 2014 - G22" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 5D8868E634 for ; Thu, 14 Feb 2019 22:15:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from phascolarctos@protonmail.ch) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2019 22:15:19 +0000 To: FreeBSD Questions From: Lorenzo Salvadore Reply-To: Lorenzo Salvadore Subject: Re: any way asm people could contribute? Message-ID: In-Reply-To: References: <201902101556.x1AFu1JO027552@sdf.org> Feedback-ID: X6az_D2smWSR8MT5MHqXnWF0upxehDyHia7Id1cbayHNBUkRu3CIeusDsZHiivIIjmaKB1_OofpALrRUYjNz3w==:Ext:ProtonMail MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.2 required=7.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,DKIM_SIGNED, DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,DKIM_VALID_EF,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on mail.protonmail.ch X-Rspamd-Queue-Id: 5D8868E634 X-Spamd-Bar: ------ X-Spamd-Result: default: False [-6.82 / 15.00]; HAS_REPLYTO(0.00)[phascolarctos@protonmail.ch]; R_SPF_ALLOW(-0.20)[+ip4:185.70.40.0/24]; TO_DN_ALL(0.00)[]; MX_GOOD(-0.01)[mailsec.protonmail.ch,mail.protonmail.ch]; DKIM_TRACE(0.00)[protonmail.ch:+]; DMARC_POLICY_ALLOW(-0.50)[protonmail.ch,quarantine]; NEURAL_HAM_SHORT(-0.97)[-0.968,0]; RCVD_COUNT_ZERO(0.00)[0]; FROM_EQ_ENVFROM(0.00)[]; RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW(-0.10)[22.40.70.185.list.dnswl.org : 127.0.5.1]; SUBJECT_ENDS_QUESTION(1.00)[]; ASN(0.00)[asn:19905, ipnet:185.70.40.0/24, country:US]; MIME_TRACE(0.00)[0:+]; MID_RHS_MATCH_FROM(0.00)[]; DWL_DNSWL_NONE(0.00)[protonmail.ch.dwl.dnswl.org : 127.0.5.0]; ARC_NA(0.00)[]; NEURAL_HAM_MEDIUM(-1.00)[-1.000,0]; R_DKIM_ALLOW(-0.20)[protonmail.ch:s=default]; URIBL_BLOCKED(0.00)[protonmail.ch.multi.uribl.com,stackoverflow.com.multi.uribl.com,codeproject.com.multi.uribl.com,wikipedia.org.multi.uribl.com,brokenthorn.com.multi.uribl.com]; FROM_HAS_DN(0.00)[]; TO_MATCH_ENVRCPT_ALL(0.00)[]; NEURAL_HAM_LONG(-1.00)[-1.000,0]; MIME_GOOD(-0.10)[text/plain]; REPLYTO_EQ_FROM(0.00)[]; RCPT_COUNT_ONE(0.00)[1]; IP_SCORE(-3.74)[ip: (-9.80), ipnet: 185.70.40.0/24(-4.90), asn: 19905(-3.92), country: US(-0.07)]; RCVD_TLS_ALL(0.00)[] X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2019 22:15:27 -0000 On Thursday 14 February 2019 22:16, Christian Weisgerber wrote: > On 2019-02-10, Lorenzo Salvadore via freebsd-questions freebsd-questions@= freebsd.org wrote: > > > Assembly is most often used for drivers: > > It is not. I don't know where you got that bizarre idea. > > Offhand, I'd say the biggest (as in lines of code) remaining use > of assembly language are optimized implementations of cryptographic > algorithms. However, the more popular the platform, the fewer gaps > there are to fill. > > Oh, and a general piece of sad wisdom I have learned over the last > twenty years: If somebody needs to ask how they can contribute, > they can't. I made my idea that Assembly is often used for drivers from a bit of experi= ence and documents such as this one: http://brokenthorn.com/Resources/OSDevIndex.html It is a tutorial for starting developing an OS. There is much of Assembly a= nd C, but the C that is in there really is a sort of high-level Assembly: of course, = as you do not have any OS yet, you do not have any C standard library to link with yet. I also happened to write some lines for a microcontroller: it was a pretty = short work, it would have been silly in this case to waste time using an existent C com= piler (if any) or to develop in "C as high-level Assembly". I talked with other people who also used Assembly for programming microproc= essors. Those web pages also claim Assembly is used for drivers: https://stackoverflow.com/a/791541 https://www.codeproject.com/articles/89460/why-learn-assembly-language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language#Current_usage Now, if your objection was about the words "most often", I might indeed be = wrong: I never made a statistical research on the topic and my impression might in= deed be wrong. About your last lines (the "general piece of sad wisdom"), I disagree. I wo= uld rather say that if somebody needs to ask how they can contribute, they can't *yet*: th= at's why they are asking! If they want to contribute but lacks knowledge, they can learn.= I do agree that some people that ask such questions ask them because they do not see t= hey are not ready (yet) to contribute, but it is not the rule and it does not preve= nt them to improve their skills: what can prevent some of them is the "if you need to = ask you can't" answer; on the other hand what can help them is point them to good learning= material. Lorenzo Salvadore.