Assembly Rebirth is a false hope



Jim Carlock wrote:
> <randyhyde@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > The "build it and they will come" approach doesn't work.
>
> Hi Randy!
>
> :-) The movie was based upon a total fantasy. But it's an uplifting movie
> and offers hope. Everyone knows it is fantasy. The whole point of the
> movie seems to run along the lines that we all need something...

There's hope, and then there is false hope. Wasting time, money, and
effort for a dream that can never be realized is very sad.

This whole concept of Rene's "assembly rebirth" is a great example of a
false hope. It will never happen. Assembly *is* becoming more popular
these days, but to think that people will give up their HLLs and switch
to assembly because "assembly is so much easier to program in" is
ignoring reality. And there is a technical term for people who ignore
reality, it's "insane".

Don't get me wrong, I'm one of the biggest fans of assembly language
around and I promote assembly language programming all the time.
Clearly I've devoted a fair part of my life to educating people about
assembly language. I personally believe that a lot more code *should*
be written in assembly language. However, I also realize that, under
the best of conditions, assembly should only account for a small part
of the actual code that is written. HLLs *are* the more appropriate
tool for *most* applications. Indeed, one of the *priniciple* reasons
people should learn assembly language is so that they can write better
HLL code. *That* is a realistic goal to promote.

Rene's approach with RosAsm has always been "If I add just 'one more
feature' to RosAsm, it will release the tidal wave of users who are
just waiting to switch from HLLs to assembly." All the while refusing
to add features that people *really* want, like library/static linking
support. His latest fantasy is "RosAsm doesn't need the ability to link
in library code, we'll just supply a disassembler and people can
disassemble existing libraries and cut and paste code into a RosAsm
app." Yeah, this is going to convince people who've been programming in
C/C++ and Java to switch right over to RosAsm. It's a prime example of
the fantasies that Rene labors under. It is a real shame to see him
waste all of his time heading down a path that was rejected by
programmers 40 years ago. It's one thing to hope that people will
switch to his assembler; it's another thing to ignore what people want
in a programming language and then get upset when other products, that
do cater to programmer's desires, become popular while your product
languishes.

Rene has built it. People have yet to come.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: RosAsm Team is Still Making Excuses
    ... It doesn't change the fact, though, that RosAsm *does* exhibit the ... The term "High Level Assembler" existed about two decades before HLA ... learning "real" assembly language, a much greater percentage of people ...
    (alt.lang.asm)
  • Re: Why I stop attacking HLA
    ... and I've been doing assembly language programming since about 1976. ... RosAsm just isn't be accepted by too many people. ... > approach, that would strip the "alternativeness" from it, wouldn't you ... is about all you need to learn the new syntax and assembler features. ...
    (alt.lang.asm)
  • Re: .EXE -> .ASM -> .EXE
    ... HLA, why would they even come you your forum? ... becoming RosAsm users). ... needs to learn assembly language. ... I do think it would be much more an improvement you write an assembler, ...
    (alt.lang.asm)
  • Re: B0
    ... >> exactly what x86 assembler code was being generated. ... IOW, RosAsm *is* a HLL. ... assembly language statements and, as you've always maintained that it ...
    (alt.lang.asm)
  • Re: A (mild-mannered) defense of RosAsm (#2)
    ... John Dahlman wrote: ... > Just a reminder, RosAsm: ... This isn't particularly remarkable for an assembler; NASM has them all ...
    (alt.lang.asm)