Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watdragon!dahlia!wjbaird
From: wjbaird@dahlia.uwaterloo.ca (Warren Baird)
Subject: Re: End this nonsense comparison
Message-ID: <1991Jan6.201242.10199@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Owner of Many System Processes)
Organization: University of Waterloo
References: <1991Jan5.014646.26135@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: Sun, 6 Jan 91 20:12:42 GMT
Lines: 91

In article <1991Jan5.014646.26135@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Desdinova) writes:
>
>Now we come to assembly vs. C.  Someone who chooses to program in C because
>"it's easier to program in C" is full of it.  Assembly language is EASY
>to program in, especially on machines line the '816 that were (sort of)
>designed to be programmed in assembly.  With good enough macro libraries,
>there's almost no reason NOT to program in assembly. Sure you have to plan
>a little better (because you can be totally free-form), but you can also
>optimize the hell out of it.

I agree completely with your opinion of the relationship between 386
chips and the 816...  However I don't agree with your discusion of C
vs. assembly...  Assembly may be _easy_ to program in (I haven't done
much assembly, but from what I've seen this may be true), but it's
non-portable...  It's also a bit of a dead end in the real (read Unix)
world...   If I write a program for the Sun 3 that I used at work, and
half or all of it is in assembly, I'm out of luck if I want to move it to
any other Unix machine (probably even other 68020 based machines, but
I don't know enough about 020 assembly to guarentee that...).  It may
work REALLY fast, but I've cut out a HUGE section of my possible user
base, or I need to recode the assembly stuff for each possible
architecture, something that would take thousands of extra
person-hours.

There is also the consideration of which is more useful in the job
market...  If I go to an interview for a computer job, and I tell the
interviewer that I can't program C, but that I can program 65816
assembly...  I'd probably not get the job...  If I walk in and say that
I can program in C, I think I'd have a FAR better chance at getting the
job...

C gives you all of the functionality and power of assembler, but it
also provides the flexibility and portability of a HLL (more so than
many HLLs, in fact...)

I agree that for a job that is TOTALLY speed-dependant, assembly is a
better choice...  but for most "real-world" applications, I think that
C with a GOOD optimizing compiler (and maybe a few essential routines
in assembly...) is a far better solution.

>
>Now- C's not all bad.  In fact, I'm releasing my TelCom program to show that
>REAL, USABLE applications can be written in C on the GS.  GScii is another
>example of a program written in a HLL that performs well- and it will even
>better once a few choice routines are rewritten in assembly.

I'm interested in seeing Telcom...

>
>And here we come to the heart of the matter- on the Apple II, people are
>still willing to write in assembly. In the rest of the world, programmers
>have become lazy.  AutoCad for the IBM will soon stop supporting '286s
>entirely- becuase the program is too 'complex' to run at good speed.
>In actuality, the programmers are too lazy to write assembly code to speed
>up critical sections.

I don't like IBM's being referred to as "the rest of the world..."
There are a lot of IBM PC compatibles out there, but I believe that
they have reached (or are near reaching) the peak of their power and
usability...  I think (and hope) that in the reasonable future, the
X86 family's ugly architecture will catch up with it, and the IBM PC
will (finally) die out...

>
>Well, I've ragged in a national forum long enough.

Me too...

>
>My point? Just that you get what you pay for, and considering everything,
>the GS is not that bad a deal.

I agree TOTALLY with this point, but I'm begining to feel the pressure
of Apple's lack of support...  I'm actually starting to wish that I
had bought an Amiga instead...  I really like my GS, but it's being
used now mainly as a terminal, a word processor, and as a games
machine...  An Amiga would be as effective for the first two, and has
more software available for the last...

>
>
>--
>Jawaid Bazyar               | Being is Mathematics 
>Senior/Computer Engineering | Love is Chemistry
>jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu    | Sex is Physics
>   Apple II Forever!        | Babies are engineering

--
         Warren Baird, 2A Co-op Math Computer Science, U(Waterloo)
 wjbaird@dahlia.uwaterloo.ca ...utzoo!watmath.uwaterloo.edu!dahlia!wjbaird
            An elephant is a mouse with an operating system...
