Re: Teaching (and Learning) Assembly Language, Part I


Alex McDonald wrote:
>
> Precursor: Part 0: Algorithms
>
> Programming in any language is an exercise in futility if the
> programmer hasn't an understanding of what they're doing. Sorting,
> searching, indexing, looping; doesn't really matter what you write in,
> understanding the algorithms used is essential. Terje Mathisen's sig is
> "almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching". My
> sig (if I had one) would be "almost all programming can be viewed as an
> exercise in algorithm translation". And for functional languages,
> "_all_ programming is an exercise in algorithm translation". Imho.

This pretty much differentiates category one from category two people
in the article. Category two people have already learned how to
implement generic algorithms into a formal programming language.
Without question, this is requires the *largest* effort associated with
learning how to program in any language, including assembly language.
It's also why most people believe that assembly language is *not* the
best "first language" to learn, because assembly language is not a good
vehicle for implementing (nor learning to implement) most algorithms.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

.

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