28 Apr
2013
28 Apr
'13
10:28 p.m.
On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 08:34:53AM +0300, Aharon Robbins wrote:
What I'd
like is a new 64 bit PDP-11. That assembler was wonderful to
read and write, only a short distance from C.
True. IF you are not writing the compiler or the low level
OS routines, what
freaking difference does it make?
We build source management systems and we still drop into assembler for
some stuff. For example, we want to give ourselves a stack traceback
when something dies. Another example is inner loops that are performance
critical, we stare at the assembler.
I don't expect the world to suddenly sit up and decide that it is important
to do what I want and give me my 64 bit PDP-11, but if that happened I'd
cheer :)
I think part of it is a yearning for simpler times. That architecture
was just so pleasant, you could move quite easily from C to assembler
and back again. If I had to teach CS these days I'd prefer that
assembler (but actually using it would be a disservice to the kids,
you want them to know x86 or ARM at this point).
--
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Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitkeeper.com