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


SevagK wrote:
>
> You're placing AoA at Cat2 and I'll have to chime in and disagree with
> this. I was definitely 'cat1' when I started with AoA and you do a fine
> job of teaching the basic programming principles that 'cat2' people are
> expected to know.

Well, let me say (and in fact, I will say it in greater detail in a
later article), that if I was *really* going to do a CAT1 book, I
wouldn't bother with the high-level control structures. For people who
don't already know a HLL and understand how such constructs are used,
they are just "extra stuff" to be learned and then unlearned later on.
The point of their presence in a book for CAT2 people should be obvious
-- cat2 people already know how to use these statements so there
shouldn't be much learning involved. They get to use what they already
know until they've got the time to learn the low-level equivalents.

>
> IMO, you do a better job than some books that are designed for 'cat1.' as
> I had read an introductory level Java book and couldn't grasp the concepts
> as easily as I was able to do so with AoA and assembly. Now I can pick up
> a book on any programming language and immediately understand the
> concepts.
>
> In conclusion,
> 1 - assembly is a great introductory level language, when the
> instructional writing is
> clear and precise.
>
> 2 - AoA is capable of serving Cat1 +

Sure. AoA may be capable and you are proof of that. The question is,
however, "could Cat1 people be better served by a different approach?"
I'm sure they could be. I've never done anything personally about that
group because (1) it's a relatively small group, (2) Jeff already
addresses that group with ASbS, and (3) I've been busy dealing with
CAT2.

I *have* addressed CAT3 and CAT4 in the past. The "MASM Bible" book was
geared to that group.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: parsing a text line vertically
    ... cat1 and cat2 are the same information like in the horizontal version. ... struct list_node *next; ... case EOF: ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: parsing a text line vertically
    ... First Log file. ... cat1: 911.00 K ... cat2: 24.11 K ... I want to abstract cat1 and cat2 for every testdata. ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: parsing a text line vertically
    ... cat1 and cat2 are the same information like in the horizontal ... Your answer belongs after (or intermixed ... with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: parsing a text line vertically
    ... follwing way. ... cat1: 911.00 K ... cat2: 24.11 K ... defects, ambiguities, improvements of the C standard. ...
    (comp.lang.c)