Re: Catagories of Assembly Languages

From: Herbert Kleebauer (klee_at_unibwm.de)
Date: 10/03/04 

Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 02:32:05 +0200

Randall Hyde wrote:
> "Herbert Kleebauer" <klee@unibwm.de> wrote in message

> > Seems you have to do a market analyze which sort of people
> > will use LuxAsm. There is the group of professional programmer,
> > but I think a professional programmer will never use a tool like
> > LuxAsm (or RosAsm or HLA or ...) to write applications.

> As there are many professional programmers who use MASM,
> I guess this is an immediate QED.

I wrote "LuxAsm (or RosAsm or HLA or ...)" and MASM surely isn't
part of the "...". MASM builds a team with Microsoft's HL languages
and many (if not most) professional Windows programmers use
Microsoft's C compiler. MASM is used as a low level support
tool for VC++ (as GAS is used for GCC), but show me an actual
commercial applications written completely with MASM or GAS. It
isn't sufficient to add a few HL constructs, either in form of a
macro system (as in LuxAsm or RosAsm) or built-in like in HLA,
to get a tool which can competed with a e.g. a C/ASM pair.

> Yes, and gun manufacturers are responsible for all firearm-related
> homicides, cigarette manufacturers are responsible for all lung
> cancer cases, spirit distillers are responsible for all drunk-driving
> accidents, etc.. We've heard all these arguments before.

Maybe you would change your mind if one of your children is
killed through one of this examples.

 
> > It has to tell the programmer
> > how to program by don't allowing him to make a bad decision.
>
> Dictators often use similar claims. The "people" don't know what's
> good for them. Only the "true leader" knows how to make right
> decisions.

Do you really not see the difference? You can tell the people
what they have to do to maximize your profit, or you can tell
them what to do because you care about them. Would you allow
you 12 year old son to drink and smoke as much as he like
because it is his own decision to do what ever he likes? If
you only care about your own success, you can create something
like HLA and sell it as a tool for teaching assembly programming
but if you would care about these people and try to really teach
them assembly programming you would never use HLA.

> > And to create his very own language which nobody else understands
> > is a bad decision.
>
> Yes. We should all be using FORTRAN today. No need to design
> new languages.

The design of a new language should be done by a group of
experts but not every hobby programmer should create his
private language.

> If you create your own languages and this is a real problem for the
> rest of the world,

It is not a problem for the rest of the world, it is a problem
for yourself. It is also not a problem for the rest of the
world if you drink or smoke. So, if you don't care about other
this is no problem at all. But if you care about other, then
you should try to make it difficult for other to start drinking
and smoking.

 
> Yep, some people could create some horrid "mini-languages" using
> something like LuxAsm. Code that no one will want to read or
> maintain.

Yes, some people could get problems if you distribute drugs
for free,

> OTOH, they could also create the "next big thing" in

but they could also be so inspired by the drugs to invent
some great things. But I still think it is a bad thing
to distribute drugs.

> > The liberty to choose between many options allows you to make
> > many wrong decisions. It is maybe much better to restrict your
> > liberty and don't allow you to make some of the worst decisions,
> > at least if you are not a professional and can't foresee the
> > consequences.
>
> Spoken like a true dictator.

No, spoken like somebody who cares about other.

 
> Look, you can easily achieve this without burdening the tool.
> The tool should have the flexibility to allow the programmer to
> do whatever they want. For the beginners, for whom that freedom
> could create problems, you limit their choices via the available
> pedagogy.

But as I said above, no professional programmer would use
that tool. Now, if you limit the features of the tool for
all people who ever use the tool, then, which sense does
it make to implement this features?

> And don't define your own functions/procedures/subroutines while your
> at it. And don't define your own data types, either.

There is a big difference between the use of a language (to define
subroutines and data structures) and the definition of a new
language.

Let's use the keyboard as an example. There are a few different
layouts, QWERY in US or QWERTZ in Germany, but most letters
are at the same position so it is no big problem to use the
PC of somebody else. Now suppose, that keyboards wouldn't
have a predefined layout but every user can specify his preferred
key <-> letter assignment. In this case you will have big
trouble if you have to use the PC of somebody else.

If a program is written in a widely known language, then it
is much easier to understand the program than if the program
is written in a self defined language.

> Language designers should concentrate on providing facilities that
> are useful to *good* programmers rather than worrying about
> how *poor* programmers might abuse those features.

Language DESIGNERS should choose a proper syntax for the
language and not allow the USER to completely redesign
the language. This means, the HL constructs have to be
built into the compiler and not to be loaded as macro
definitions which easily can be changed by the user.
(But don't forget, it isn't an assembler any more.)

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