MESSAGE
| DATE | 2004-09-02 |
| FROM | From: "Steve Milo"
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [hangout] Assembly
|
On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 01:37:40 -0400, Ruben Safir Secretary NYLXS wrote
> So can you give a class on ASM
>
> I'd pay for it
>
> Ruben
>
> On Thu, Sep 02, 2004 at 12:25:58AM -0400, Billy wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 01, 2004 at 07:06:44PM -0400, Steve Milo wrote:
> > > So basically this all means that I am going to have to suck it up and
> > > tough it out.
> >
> > > Strangely, the Sun Admins sentiments, when I asked him who
> > > else uses assembly language besides in academia were 'no one'.
> >
> > I strongly suspect that he doesn't know what he's talking about. On the
> > sysadmin end, security researchers work in assembly (and disassembly)
> > *ALL THE TIME*. In the normal "PeeCee" application/OS kernel style of
> > programming, you CANNOT get maximum performance for your number
> > crunching, video codecs, etc. using vanilla C code. Search the Linux
> > kernel sometime. It's loaded with asm. You HAVE to use some extra ASM
> > to optimize the coprocessors and caches and pipelines other exotics. C
> > is flexible, scalable, and portable, but it's very rarely making the
> > best use of the CPU for that dark corner of the room occupied by
> > specialized programs or specialized hardware.
> >
> > There's a LOT of stuff that just cannot be expressed in C, because it
> > has no idea what machine it's running on. You're going to have to
> > understand what's REALLY going on to be a good programmer. You can
> > DRIVE the car with C, but you can't repair it or even tune it up.
> >
> > Several sysadmins I know tend to be too dismissive of tech they don't
> > use. I don't know what it is about them. Maybe it's an ignorant
> > personality type that leads people into sysadminning.
> >
> > > I said well what about embedded devices, 'thats all done in C' was his
> > > reply.
> >
> > Don't listen to him. He doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.
> > This is understandable because he's a sysadmin, and not an EE.
> >
> > I *do* embedded devices, and I can tell you that there is no C without
> > asm. C is compiled into asm, and sometimes it is compiled into into
> > malfunctioning asm. Embedded folks have to deal with moving-target CPUs
> > for which the port of the C compiler isn't very mature, and that means
> > rolling up your sleeve, debugging in assembly, and even hunting down and
> > sidestepping/killing the compiler bugs which produced the bad asm in the
> > first place. Can you guess how far you'll get in this endeavor without
> > being able to at least read the asm?
> >
> > > Some how I find it hard to believe that even though 'C' is the standard
> > > programming language in many things assembly has been forgotten about.
> >
> > Your intuition serves you well.... assembly code hasn't and cannot be
> > forgotten about. As long as CPUs evolve, we'll have to think of ways
> > to write efficient code for them. It's impossible for a higher-level
> > language to expose the full power of a CPU the way native assembly can.
> >
> > So we use LOTS and LOTS of C, with a LITTLE BIT of asm for the weird
> > CPU-specific stuff to get some cool functionality or a tight little
> > code speedup here and there. A lot of the asm code I've seen in the
> > field is expressed as 'asm' statements in C code.
> >
> > ____________________________
> > NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
> > Fair Use -
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> > NYLXS is a trademark of NYLXS, Inc
>
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> __________________________
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Fair Use -
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NYLXS is a trademark of NYLXS, Inc
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