Re: HLA Stdlib v2.2 is now available.

On Sep 25, 11:38 am, //\\\\o//\\\\annabee <w...@xxxxx> wrote:


Yes, a quitter knows best. :-)

If you can analyze and feed your teacher the code he wants to see, to get
an A, yes, better quit.

Hmmmm....
Did it ever occur to you that in the *real world* the job of a
programmer is to analyze the problems the *customers* want solved and
provide a solution *they* want to see? The problem with "know-it-alls"
such as yourself is that you never learned that the goal of a
programmer is to solve problems for *other people*, not write whatever
code you feel like writing or solve the problems in ways that the
customer isn't interested it.

Your response is *completely* indicative of the problem with
quitters.



[snipped lots of comments that further indicate you are incapble of
being a professional software developer]



The Iczelion tutorials do not teach assembly language. They assume the
reader already *knows* assembly language programming. Assembly under
anything is pretty easy if you already know assembly language.
Care to try again?

Assembly under windows, is so easy, it simply does not need any comments.

Yes, I've seen your code. I can believe you think it doesn't need to
be commented :-) You're absolutely wrong, of course. Just another
example of your inability to write professional-quality code.


There are registers, you move data from one to the other, and between
memory.

Oh wow. Are you going to give us an assembly language tutorial right
here? Maybe this can be Rene's 13th lesson :-)


It doesnt get easier than that.

Well, at least you're on to something here.
You're absolutely correct, of course, it *doesn't* get easier than
that. Indeed, it gets a *whole lot more difficult* after that.

After all, if programming in assembly language were so easy, wouldn't
there be a *lot* of people doing it?
If learning to program in assembly language were so easy, why are so
many books being sold on the subject?
If learning to program in assembly language were so easy, why does AoA
on Webster continue to get so many hits each day?


Now learning the APIS is useful and takes
time.

Yes, but that is independent of learning assembly language. Which is
exactly my point. The Iczelion tutorials are great for teaching you
the APIs, but they aren't suitable for teaching assembly language.
This is true of most such tutorials you'll find on the Internet.


And is the first thing an windows asm programmer needs to see.
Izcellion tells him a bit about this. The rest he can learn by slowly
adding a little on top of his existing knowledge.

So why don't you do a study and find out how many programmers have
learned assembly language programming starting with nothing but the
Iczelion tutorials?



When he has become comfortable with the thing he knows, he add something
else.

And three years later, s/he knows about as much as you do about
assembly language programming -- which is to say, nowhere near as much
as they ought to know given the amount of effort they've put it.



You're the one talking about how all the materials are great for
beginners. If you have nothing to back up your claims, why are you
making them?

I havent made any claims on behalfe of the rest of the world. I have used
and learned from the material. Therefore I know that they are adequate,
(for a start) because I was a beginner when I did so. I dont keep track of
every asmer that takes away something from materials at other sites.

Yes, you have made such claims. Go back and read your own posts in
this very thread.
And if you want to back pedal and claim you're only talking about
yourself, fine. But after three years of learning the way you have,
your knowledge on the subject of assembly language isn't very
impressive. Oh, you may know all about this Win32 API and that Win32
API, and that *could* be considered impressive, but learning Win32
APIs is *not* learning assembly language. If someone wants to learn
the Win32 APIs, then the Iczelion tutorials might be a good place to
start if they already know assembly language (though, if they know C,
Petzold's book is far better). OTOH, if they don't already know
assembly language, trying to learn assembly language programming by
reading tutorials on the Win32 API is a *bad* idea.



Proof by example is false.

You don't know much about proofs, do you?

Says you? Who led Dictionary ass to the fiasco of the RosAsm symbol "bug"?

Perfect example of "proof by contradiction". The assertion "RosAsm is
bug-free" is easily disproven by a single example of a bug.



There are certainly two cases where a "proof by example" is perfectly
valid.
1) An exhaustive proof.
2) A proof by contradition (where the example provides the
contradiction).

:D Are you still trying to "prove" that my "advertisment" for my
"education model" is not good?

Your assertion: my educational model is not good.
Proof by contradiction: you have not learned as much as a normal
person would after studying assembly language programming for three
years, therefore we can assume that your education model is bad.



As you constantly hold yourself up as the example of productivity with
RosAsm, it's perfectly valid to contract what you have to say by
pointing out that most other people with different tools have become
much more educated and much more productive than you have over the
same span of time.

You can of course not generalize anything I do, and make assumtions based
on that about other people, or the tools they use.

No I can't.
But then again, neither can you. Yet you seem to be doing a lot of
that in this and other threads.
For example, you constantly hold up your "productivity" as "proof"
that RosAsm is the best development tool, ever. Leaving alone your
mischaracterization of your own productivity (which is a shakey
claim), you cannot generalize your own experience to other people.


In order for that to be
valid, you would need a complete chart of the hours spent at it, for each
of the people you compare against. And etc.

But one thing in my favor is that I *have* managed teams of
programmers. So I do have a bit of experience with this sort of stuff.
And your claims run completely contrary to just about every project
I've managed, worked on, or am aware of. And your claims run contrary
to almost every (positive) case study appearing in software
engineering texts and papers. I will say, however, that your
experiences *do* jibe with many of the *bad* examples appearing in
software engineering case studies. And most of your programming
practices (leading off with "cut & paste") come straight off the "do
not do this" list in software engineering. As I suggested already,
pick up and read a copy of "The Pragmattic Programmer".


Yes, and when you learn incrementally as you've done, you spend three
years and rise only to the level where you're at.

You dont know anything about how many hours I can work, so saying this
means nothing.

Given the number of lines of code you've cut&pasted your way through,
I can easily come to the conclusion that you've spent *far* more time
educating yourself than you should have, in order to reach the level
you've attained at this point. Don't forget, I was a professional
educator. I've had a bit of experience with watching students learn
and mature in Computer Science programs. Given how little you've
learned about assembly language over the past three years, I'm not
surprised you didn't make it through your University's program.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that learning by bits and pieces as
you've done is impossible; I'm saying it's grossly inefficient and you
wind up with some serious gaps in your knowledge.

It is the other way around. It is 100% sure there are gaps in my
knowledge. You sentance here is completly meaningless. Who dont have gaps
in their knowledge?

You have some *serious* gaps in your knowledge.
Gaps that someone who has completed a four-year Computer Science
program *wouldn't* have.



Sure, someone can pick up English in conversation; that won't make
them a great writer, however.

And your problem then? Is it that you think you can become a great writer
from studying english litterature in school??

Far more likely than picking up English in "bits and pieces".



One need only look at your's and Rene's
posts to see that.

René's english is the cooolest thing. He has made such wonderful
inovations in the english language it will be a long long time til we see
it like that again.

Alas, that doesn't make him a great writer.
The point of writing is to *communicate* using a *shared* language.
Creating new vocabulary just because you're incapable of learning and
using the *proper* vocabulary is not an attribute of a great
communicator. Yes, Rene's attempts at mangling English are sometimes
humorous. That does not, however, make him a great writer.



While I admire people who *really* make an effort
at self-education, the problem with self-educated people is that there
are all too often major gaps in their knowledge. That's the beautiful
thing about a University education: it forces you to study things
you'd find boring, uninteresting, or flat-out crazy. Stuff you'd never
study on your own. Most of the time, however, this is *exactly* the
material you need to know in order to write decent code.

If you study anything you find boring, you become boring.

Ah, yes. The self-indulgent, immediate gratification, attitude.
The problem is, you see, is that to become *good* at something, you
have to master it. This implies learning all the boring stuff as well
as the exciting stuff. People who only learn the "exciting" stuff may
be able to crank out an impressive demo or two now and then, but they
aren't qualified to do real work in the field.

You, of course, are a prime example of this.


We have the internet now. Traditional teachers are obsolete.

Why yes, that bastion of truth, the internet.
Tell me, if the teachers all go away because they are obsolete, who is
going to sort out the fact from the fiction on the internet for the
students who don't know?

Peer
education and study of their work are imo far more useful.

At the undergraduate level, this is commonly known as "the blind
leading the blind".


The schools
should focus on teaching how to learn effcient.

And what makes you think they haven't been doing this?
Case in point: HLA. Through classroom experiments I have shown that
using HLA makes learning assembly language *far* more efficient.
OTOH, the model you propose is incredibly *inefficient*. I've got 10
weeks to teach someone assembly language and machine organization, not
three years.


How to search for
information.

Alas, "searching for information" is *not* what education is mostly
about. Education is mostly about teaching students to *think*. The
"Just look it up on the internet" attitude actually encourages
students *not* to think.

Further, many activities, such as programming, require a lot of
*practice*. Just "looking up homework assignments on the internet"
helps students *avoid* that practice and, once again, does not teach
them how to think up solutions on their own.

I realize that you probably think that having to think is "boring",
but that's what schools are really about -- teaching students how to
think about how to solve problems.


What most traditional schools are doing is that they try to
beat a dead horse.

A typical statement from a drop-out.

I find it pretty telling that most graduates who've made it through
the University tend to believe that the educational process they went
through was quite useful to them, whereas those who dropped out are
the ones who believe the program was useless.

You can rationalize your failure anyway you want, but tell me this --
if a University program is so useless, why is it that most programming
jobs these days *require* a four-year degree?


Let me give you a classic example you can relate to. When you first
started playing with RosAsm, you bragged about how you'd spent "10
years programming in Delphi" (undoubtedly a lie, unless you were a
beta tester for Borland) and how you couldn't figure out "linked
lists" until you started using assembly.

I never said so.

Uh, go back and read your posts from three years ago.

I said, I was amazed with the ease of using them in asm.
But why do you insist on making this a discussion about me. Why cant you
instead try to pick up the argument if there ever was one.

Because this discussion *is* about you. You constantly tell us how
great RosAsm is because of *your* experiences with it. I'm questioning
your experiences and your education. I'm questioning your claims. Yes,
this *is* about you and your failures.


intended, but data structures and algorithms is typically the
second or third programming course that students take in a CS program.
That means that (1) you never took any serious programming courses at
the University, (2) you dropped out really early, or (3) you
completely bombed out of the courses.

I have no idea what you try todo. You lost the argument flat earlier, now
you are making this into an argument about how and why I went to school?

You are the one claiming you got a better education outside of school.
I'm simply pointing out that you don't seem to have the education of a
University student who has completed his/her second or third
programming course at the University. Remember the "proof by
contradiction"? That's what I'm using here. You claim to be well
(self) educated after having droppped out of the University. I'm
simply pointing out, using your own past comments, that you haven't
really gotten to the point a typical freshman or sophomore gets in a
typical University program. IOW, by contradiction, I'm proving that
your method of self-education just doesn't work.


Do you think I care? I am PROUD to have been a dropout.

Yes, I can see that. More rationalization.

I dont think like
you do. Nothing like it. I never will. I wear my dropout hat with pride. I
just feel sorry for the guys who could not stumack such a courages and
fortunate event.

Tell us this: what professional programming position have you ever
held? What peer-reviewed (as long as you've brought up the subject of
peer-based education) articles have you written? What peer-reviewed
programs have you written to wide acclaim?

hLater,
Randy Hyde

.

Relevant Pages

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    ... x86 Assembly Language FAQ - General Part 3 of 3 ... Benjamin David Lunt's DOS assembly page ... Eric Isaacson's A86 Assembler and D86 Debugger Page ... Quantasm's x86 and Pentium Programming Tips and Info ...
    (comp.lang.asm.x86)
  • Re: HLA Stdlib v2.2 is now available.
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