Re: Assembler Benchmarks

From: Beth (BethStone21_at_hotmail.NOSPICEDHAM.com)
Date: 01/31/04 

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 16:41:43 -0000

Gerhard W. Gruber wrote:
> Beth wrote:
> >But, admittedly, we appear to be straying sufficiently far from
RosAsm
> >that I will be seeing if Frank can change our project description
to
> >drop the RosAsm reference (Frank?)...it would be unfair and
misleading
>
> If the LuxAsm will be sourcecompatible, then the reference should
stay. after
> all, there exist some sources and documentation for it, so why not
keeping it.

That's still under discussion...Yeoh seems keen on it staying
RosAsm-syntax-like...I don't think either Frank nor myself are
particularly fussy about that...although, there is the "issue" that
Randy makes that there are some questions about things like "nesting"
in macros and so forth...but the basic stuff about "[]" and "D$" and
that kind of thing is syntactical sugar and it's never bothered me
that different assemblers use different syntaxes (so long as it's
still understandable and useable :)...

> Otherwise this will be just another assembler, but whats the point
of it?

Ah, well; Like RosAsm, it's to be GUI-based and
"integrated"...designed with the idea of writing X-Windows
applications "specifically"...it's not unusual in being another
assembler, the difference is in the way it goes about that...and an
"X-Windows specific" assembler is kind of a "niche" not really covered
by anything else so far...

The point - though the other LuxAsm developers may differ on their
perspective - is to provide support for assembly programming on Linux
and X-Windows...primarily with the intention of creating also
GUI-based X-Windows applications...there's a whole bunch of "new wave"
32-bit assemblers for Windows Win32 - RosAsm, HLA, GoAsm, etc. - and,
well, LuxAsm is evening up the score over on Linux...HLA works on
Linux too, of course...but the X-Windows support is actually "pending"
(because I'll actually be helping Randy with that when HLA v2.0 and
Randy is ready to start on that stuff :)...

--------------------------

Oh, which reminds me, Randy, if you're reading...I had, of course,
considered that the effort on things like X-Windows include files
could be "shared" between HLA and LuxAsm...you know, just "converting"
from one syntax to the other and stuff...until Frank reminded me of
something I plain forgot: HLA is public domain and LuxAsm is GPL...oh
dear, we have "licence leakage", to coin a term...something GPL can't
be un-GPL'd to PD, even with a syntax change...I was wondering if
perhaps switching to an "X licence" would cure this...but, then, some
people consider GPL important...anyone out there a "master of the
licences" who can help solve this complication? It's quite ludicrous,
really, because I'd be the author on both and, yet, I'm stopped by my
own licence!!! I think this is one of those places where GPL can be
more unhelpful than helpful...

How about if I code the files in HLA first - so it's PD - as a
"separate personal project" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink ;), which I then
just happen to contribute to HLA and then convert the syntax for
LuxAsm, where it becomes GPL in its "derived" version (PD allows that,
right? For a minor change like syntax and then it could be GPL'd quite
properly? :)? After all, the LuxAsm assembler would probably not show
up for a bit, as it's still "just thought processes" at the moment...

Although, it's a spanner in the works for also making conversions
elsewhere...I suppose, though, NASM's okay because it's GPL (at the
moment ;)...I don't know, they don't warn about this sort of thing on
the OpenSource webpage at all! ;)

Beth :)

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