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Date:      Tue, 9 May 2000 15:46:19 -0500 (CDT)
From:      David Scheidt <dscheidt@enteract.com>
To:        J McKitrick <jcm@freebsd-uk.eu.org>
Cc:        chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: assembly vs C
Message-ID:  <Pine.NEB.3.96.1000509154027.59545A-100000@shell-2.enteract.com>
In-Reply-To: <20000509212637.A73322@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>

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On Tue, 9 May 2000, J McKitrick wrote:

> I've heard some debates recently, mostly by 'old-school' hackers from the
> C64 days who are calling for a return to machine language.  They claim that
> CPU speed, memory size, and HD space will begin to plateau soon, and that ML
> would bring a much needed return to efficiency and clean coding.

Anybody who thinks that assembly is going to make a big comeback hasn't
looked at writing code for modern processors.  While there are people who
can produce code that is as efficent as the stuff cranked out by a good
compiler, there aren't that many.  There aren't nearly as many as there were
during the era of the 6502 and the Z-80.  The compilers have gotten much
better and the chips much harder to write code for.  I am sure that assembly
will stick around for a while, for things like low-level OS glue, and the
occaisonal tightly optimized loop.  I can't imagine anyone writing a large
application in assembly for the Alpha, MIPS, PA-RISC, or IA-64.  

David



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