Re: Definitions - What are yours?

On Jul 31, 10:44 am, Betov <be...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
"rh...@xxxxxxxxxx" <rh...@xxxxxxxxxx> écrivaitnews:1185902798.294930.28470@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

Then explain why RosAsm is an assembler when it supports high-level
assembly features

This is quite easy, clown:

When the user makes use of the Equal Preparser, RosAsm is
no more an Assembler. And, as long as this all is under
user's control, as soon as he does no more use it, it is
an Assembler.

Well, then, by the same token, when a user makes use of one of the
statements you find offensive in HLA, it is no longer an assembler.
But until then, it is an assembler.



Mind you, clown, we plan to implement a Basic Pre-Parser,
one or other day. When done, when the user will write:

PREPARSE Basic

The user will be using a Basic, and i do not think that
anybody ever said that Basic was Assembly.

IOW, what you're saying is that the RosAsm language is not an assembly
language.

I realize you don't have a clue about formal languages in computer
science, so let me point out something to you -- a language is defined
as the set of all "strings" (programs) that the grammar for that
language can produce. In the RosAsm language, the grammar includes a
PREPARSE statement that accepts some operands like "EQUALS" (and,
maybe someday, "BASIC"). Because the (implicit) grammar for RosAsm
includes these statements, the RosAsm language includes everything you
can do with PREPARSE. Therefore, whether you would like to admit it or
not, everything that PREPARSE EQUALS allows is part of the RosAsm
language.

You're attempting to claim that the statements that PREPARSER EQUALS
activates are not really part of the language because they cannot be
used in a stand-alone fashion without the PREPARSE statement. This is
silly. That's like saying "case" is not a part of the C language
because it is only "activated" when you use a "switch" statement.
Whether you like it or not, everything that can be included by the
PREPARSER statement is a part of the RosAsm language.

Now if you want to make the claim that this is not part of the
language, but some doorway to an "in-line high-level language", then
I'll accept that from you. We can argue that the PREPARSE statement is
just an implementation detail (like in-line assembly in a C compiler)
and that it's not really part of the language.

Well, guess what? If that argument is good enough for RosAsm, it's
good enough for HLA too. Because all that HLL-like stuff that you
complain about is under complete control of the user. They can turn it
all off if they really can't stand the thought that they might
accidentally use one of those statements (or, more realistically, they
would simply not bother to use the statements they don't like and turn
off the statements if they happen to have a conflict with an
identifier they want to use).

Oh, and please don't try and feed us the line about how the users
might accidentally use a statement and not realize it's assembly
language in HLA. That might be a problem for MASM or TASM users, but
HLA users can easily turn all that stuff off. So they would never be
misled into believing that some statement is a "true" assembly
language statement if they were concerned about such things. Of
course, I've not seen too many people get through AoA and not know the
difference between a machine instruction and a HLL-like control
structure, but based on type of users that RosAsm attacts and your
experience with them, I can understand why you would assume this to be
the case with HLA users. Rest assured, if someone comes along who is
concerned that they might inadvertently use some non-machine-
instruction statement, they can run LLA (a simple rename of HLA) and
their confusion will be over.

hLater,
Randy Hyde

.

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