Re: Does MSIL Qualify?
- From: "Randall Hyde" <randyhyde@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 14:56:07 GMT
"Evenbit" <nbaker2328@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1113728757.700987.60910@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Does Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) qualify as an assembly
> language?
>
> It runs on an emulated processor known as a Common Runtime System (CRS)
> which is stack-based virtual CPU. Is this 'real' assembly language?
>
> http://www.codeguru.com/Csharp/.NET/net_general/il/article.php/c4635/
>
> Does ILASM qualify as an assembler? Is it a 'real' assembler?
> Does ILDASM qualify as a dis-assembler?
At one time there was an assembler for the UCSD P-System (a virtual
machine, not unlike the Java VM). There were some people arguing
about whether this was a "real" assembler because it assembled code
for an interpreter rather than a "real" machine. Then Western Digital
actually *built* a hardware implementation of the p-machine in
hardware. All of a sudden, that "not an assembler" became an
"assembler". Without changing one byte of code.
No one questioned the early 86-64 "text to object code translators"
being an "assembler" prior to the arrival of real hardware on which
it ran. So there is an example of an "assembler" that produced code
that didn't run on any machine (at the time).
The bottom line is that people (especially in this newsgroup) use
the term "assembler" to further political agendas, not to describe
a type of software product. The plain and simple definition of
an assembler is just this:
"An assembler is a compiler for an assembly language."
So the real trick is defining what an "assembly language" is.
No one around here has come up with a satisfactory explanation.
So don't expect any clear cut answers to your question.
Personally, if the code is executable, either directly on hardware
or by some simulation of the hardware, then I'd call it an assembler.
Now whether or not IL could be considered an executable format
is another question altogether.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
.
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