Re: Your opinion on the Agner fog manuals.
- From: o///annabee <Wannabee@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 09 Dec 2006 20:51:46 +0100
På Sat, 09 Dec 2006 19:07:37 +0100, skrev <rhyde@xxxxxxxxxx>:
And this makes it a hoax, why?
I belive I answered that allready.
Not discussing the obvious contradictionary contents of this statement,
What contradiction exists?
I may have misread that one.
first, he himself does not have such good understanding.
Actually, he has a *very* good understanding of the underlying
architecture.
Maybe, but he doesnt know squat about writing assemebly.
Perhaps it's just that because you don't understand this
stuff, Agner's knowledge is not apparent to you?
No, thats not it at all. Thats exactly the reason for exposing it. Because only if I did not know and understand anything, would I bother to take advice from it.
He never wrote a
full application in assembly.
What makes you say that?
"Never make the whole program in assembly. " ?
I guess he takes his own advice for this one at least. But by all means, I could be wrong. He may have tried to make a program in assembly, but unable to pull it off, he concluded that noone would be able to pull it off. Maybe thats what he means?
But if so, why gives him the right to teach "advanced assembly programmers"?
answer: His level of intellectual honesty
No, it doesn't. It just states that he believes people shouldn't write
full applications in assembly language.
Because he himself is unable to?
:) (Guess I owe you one for that "Wending" master PDF :)) :)) )
"
2 Before you start
....
Here is a checklist of things to consider before you start programming:
· Never make the whole program in assembly. "
The fact is, this book is neither suitable for beginners.
How many people write full applications in assembly language these
days? Very few. Therefore, the worst you can claim is that he is
pandering to the vast majority of the programmers out there.
He is attacking the beginners.
This is not only an assumtion of mine, as Betov, who is the most
accomplished asm writers around here, allready told us he would not even
consider downloading that PDF.
Rene readily admits he doesn't believe in optimizing assembly language
code. Therefore, why would he download this document? However, the
fact that Rene won't learn this material doesn't mean other people
don't want to learn it.
Its not a question of "beliveing". its a question of much experience. Agnar has none. He is a C++ programmer experimenting with assembly. In other words a nuub.
> Given that a lot of long-time assembly language programmers have relied
> on these manuals over the years, I'd hardly doubt that you could call
> them a hoax.
They are a hoax because the guy doesnt really know what he is talking
about.
And there, you are quite wrong. Anyone who has studied his material,
even superficially, realizes that Mr. Fog knows what he's talking
about. If he didn't, the material would be completely wrong and no one
would read it.
Beginners would. And advanced asm programmers would not. As proven by the very fact, that Betov didnt even want to look at it, and that the nuubs in the asmcommunity, praising it a lot.
You may disagree with his opinions about whether whole
applications should be written in assembly language, but the truth
remains that Agner Fog understands this material quite well.
Anyone could write whats in this crap,
So have at it :-)
Feel free to write the comparable documentation that preaches whole
applications should be written in assembly. That's the wonderful thing
about the internet. If you disagree with something appearing on one
page, you can create your own that rectifies the problems you have with
the original page.
True.
if he could only lower his
standard of intellectual honesty low enough, for the time it could pain
him to write it.
What makes you think he is intellectually dishonest? For him to be
intellectually dishonest (based on the claims you're making thus far)
he would have to believe that whole applications should be written in
assembly language and claim otherwise. Have you not considered the
fact that he actually *believes* (like most people) that few, if any,
large applications should be written in assembly language?
Beliving is not required when you have knowledge. I dont give a rat ass what this guy belive or not. The fact that he has no clue is enough for calling him names.
>
> Okay, be our guest :-)
> The bottom line, however, as I've already pointed out, is that many
> advanced programmers have been using this documentation for years and
> Agner Fog has garned quite a strong reputation on the basis of this
> documentation.
Thats really scary. Allthough no surprice by now....
Yes, people who do the research and produce good reference material
tend to develop good reputations. People who whine about the success of
those people and never produce much on their own also develop a
reputation, just not the one they want.
Well, I tend to think that the "research" part is exactly whats missing. After all, the guy doesnt write his main applications in assembly. (If he even wrote anything in C) So how could he know enough about it to dicourage others from trying?
>
> No doubt, the documentation has several errors. If you've ever written
> a large document (or a large software system), then you know how
> difficult it is to ensure that the result is error-free.
Yes, I find it very hard to write documents.
Yet you seem to be an expert on how bad this one is.
Well, reading one doesnt imply writing one.
Yes, admittedly to write
descent documents is hard work. But this paper stink.
Thus far, the only evidence you've provide is that the author claims
that whole applications shouldn't be written in assembly language. A
very common viewpoint, I might point out. That's hardly evidence that
this paper stinks.
The first two chapters stink a lot. The stink has the unmistakeable tint of nuub all over it.
And this also imply that the rest of it could be very bad as well. But I havent read all of it yet, so it would be premature to make any claims about the rest.
And to write stinky
documents can be done in a much smaller time. You of all people should
know that.
Well, feel free to write your own and show us how a good document
should be written.
Maybe I will.
> This is
> compounded by the fact that the x86 is a moving target and a statement
> that might be true for one generation of the CPU is not true for a
> different generation. Perhaps you're reading information about an older
> CPU and misinterpreting it as applying to whatever CPU you're using?
No. This is not it at all. I assume even Agner can quote the Intel and AMD
manuals. This is about his so many wrong and absurde recommendations, and
his illusion of / and pretending to be writing towards a set of advanced
asm programmers.
You're assuming here that the AMD and Intel manuals
1) are correct (and they often are not)
2) contain all the same information (which they do not).
3) have organized the material in a manner that is usable by people
wanting to optimize their assembly code (which they certainly have
not).
No I am just assuming that mr. fog is able to quote them.
The word "research" begins with "re" for a very good reason. A good
reference like Agner Fog's need not contain unique information (though
it certainly does), it need only collect useful information from many
different sources and present it in a more organized fashion to be
useful. Ralf Brown's Interrupt List is another example of such a
document.
I know that the papers are old, but I read somewhere that they had been updated.
Thats why I took a look.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
.
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