Re: Rene's Revised History of Assembly Language



Betov wrote:
> randyhyde@xxxxxxxxxxxxx écrivait news:1117551122.737979.289960
> @z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:
>
> > ... how many are using RosAsm?
> > At least HLA *has* some users :-) (indeed, the HLA user base is exactly
> > the target audience it was created for; as yet, I don't see all the HLL
> > programmers running to use RosAsm [HLL users being the audience you've
> > claimed to target]).
>
> Time will tell... :))

Time *has* told us. It's been seven years since you started RosAsm (by
your own claims). You've got 80 members on the RosAsm support board. If
this assembler was *really* going to set the world on fire, don't you
think you'd have a few more users by now?

First, it was going to be ReactOS that made it all possible. Two years
ago you were claiming the "assembly rebirth" would start in two years.
Well, two years have passed. ReactOS isn't ready and RosAsm sure isn't
setting the world on fire. Then, the disassembler was going to kick off
the assembly rebirth. Well, after two years of releases, we don't see
too much of that, do we (and I've found posts a year or more ago where
you claimed in just a few short weeks the disassembly would be ready;
what happened?) Next, I'd imagine it's the "wizards" that are going to
make the assembly rebirth happen. What will your excuse for RosAsm's
failure be after that?

>
> For now, all time says is that the HLA victims do not
> write anything significative and that the RosAsm users
> are productive.

Sure. Thousands of beginners are learning assembly using HLA. Tens of
RosAsm users are being productive. Now granted, many (indeed most) of
the current crop of HLA users will finish their assembly language
programming classes and never touch assembly language again (and that
fact would be true no matter what assembler they've used -- I've taught
the courses with several assemblers over the years, so I have a little
bit of experience in this area). But if only 2% of those students stick
with it, that means that we'll get about one or two students per
course, per school, going on to become more experienced HLA
programmers. As their programming experience grows, so will the
sophistication of the apps that they produce. HLA's use in schools is
still very new (about a year in most cases, because that's when
AoA/32bits was published). Given that the assembly course is generally
taken during the first or second year, that means that it will still be
a couple of years before those students gain sufficient programming
knowledge and experience to write complex applications in *any*
language, much less assembly. But in the mean time, we're probably
seeing about 1-2 students per course, per term, per school, who will go
on to do more work in assembly. The growth curve is slow, but the
advanced user base *is* growing. I doubt you'll ever see a "floodgate"
opening up, with tons of HLA applications appearing all at once, but
the number of apps will continue to increase.

Ultimately, though, providing an application development tool is not
HLA's prime purpose. As is obvious to *anyone*, most applications are
not written in assembly language and as is obvious to anyone but you,
that fact is *not* going to change, ever. Creating a tool for creating
stand-alone applications in assembly limits your product to the 0.0001%
of the programming population who does that. The *vast* majority of the
time that assembly is actually used, it's used as a companion to a HLL.
And this is RosAsm's biggest failing -- it doesn't conveniently allow
such usage. And this is HLA's greatest advantage-- having a syntax that
is similar to HLLs, it is very convenient for HLL programmers to use
HLA. Make all the snide remarks you like about this fact, but the fact
remains that the RosAsm approach is doomed to failure. Heck, it's not
doomed, it *has* failed. I mean, after 7 years you've attracted 80
users to your board. If your ideas were so good, I'd have expected a
better response than this.


>
> Not that bad, for now...

If you think that having 80 users is not that bad, after seven years,
more power to you. Does the term "insignificant" have any meaning to
you?
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: "We Never Use Assembly Language"
    ... Use an array incorrectly in RosAsm, ... And that's one of the reasons HLL programming is generally more ... same applies to assembler speed. ...
    (alt.lang.asm)
  • Re: "We Never Use Assembly Language"
    ... Use an array incorrectly in RosAsm, ... instead of the game programming:-p ... doesn't even have the competence to implement a decent undo feature. ... productivity of the RosAsm assembler. ...
    (alt.lang.asm)
  • Re: Will HLA2.0 Support rosasm?
    ... But I do understand tha HLA runs on the same CPU. ... > Theres nothing that HLA can do that RosAsm cant be made to do. ... > text, RosAsm can accept it, since RosAsm is an assembler. ... So really thats just yet another lie. ...
    (alt.lang.asm)
  • Re: Why I stop attacking HLA
    ... ||Betov did in fact provide a decent alternative to Webster and HLA. ... RosAsm _supports_ windows interface guidelines, ... || About tutorials, Betov's own are not the ... as they would have done for any other assembler - no ...
    (alt.lang.asm)
  • Re: The best Assembler.
    ... I'm not professing that using HLA made me an expert assembly ... This is probably a referrence to AoA's use of HLL as an introduction ... Not because you later write applications in assembler ... about the lowest level you can go is devise programming through the OS ...
    (alt.lang.asm)