[TUHS] curmudgeon credit
Larry McVoy
lm at bitmover.com
Mon Apr 29 02:28:44 AEST 2013
On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 08:34:53AM +0300, Aharon Robbins wrote:
> > What I'd like is a new 64 bit PDP-11. That assembler was wonderful to
> > read and write, only a short distance from C.
>
> True.
> IF you are not writing the compiler or the low level OS routines, what
> freaking difference does it make?
We build source management systems and we still drop into assembler for
some stuff. For example, we want to give ourselves a stack traceback
when something dies. Another example is inner loops that are performance
critical, we stare at the assembler.
I don't expect the world to suddenly sit up and decide that it is important
to do what I want and give me my 64 bit PDP-11, but if that happened I'd
cheer :)
I think part of it is a yearning for simpler times. That architecture
was just so pleasant, you could move quite easily from C to assembler
and back again. If I had to teach CS these days I'd prefer that
assembler (but actually using it would be a disservice to the kids,
you want them to know x86 or ARM at this point).
--
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Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitkeeper.com
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