On Sat, 18 Jan 2003, Byron A Jeff wrote:

> >Even if someone
> > ends up using a higher level language once they get going, the insight
> > gained from doing a few assembler projects will be valuable.
>
> Why doesn't this same theory apply to Macs, Solaris, Windows, or Linux boxes?
> What is it about small systems that turns this on its head?

I don't think it applies any less to those boxes, quite frankly.  The
insight gained from doing assembly programming WILL be vaulable.  A
programmer with a more intimate understanding of the hardware and the
system will eventually write much better, faster, cleaner code than one
who doesn't understand anything but the compiler.

On a PIC, though, it does become much more important.  I can afford to
waste a few KB or even a few MB of memory on a PC or a UNIX box, they have
enough hardware and enough speed to effectively mask some HUGE glaring
inefficient crap code (witness certain operating systems).  On a 2GHz Xeon
box with 2GB of memory and a few 80GB hard drives, even Windows looks
fast. You simply don't have that luxury on a PIC.

Dale
---
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off.

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