From: glen herrmannsfeldt on
Robert Myers <rbmyersusa(a)gmail.com> wrote:
(snip)

> This is not the place to discuss it, but, the need for a "portable
> assembler," such as c, is debatable, since so much now is x86. VHDL is
> not a realistic option for most applications programmers, but x86
> assembler is. That's what the people I know who really want to write
> fast code use, and, as for me, I'd rather read well-commented assembler
> than the typical c program.

I have written assembler for many machines and x86 is my least
favorite. Well, I haven't written much for RISC machines,
such as Sparc and HP-PA, but I think I would still prefer
them over x86.

-- glen
From: Mark Stevens on
On Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:05:41 -0500, Lynn McGuire <lmc(a)winsim.com>
wrote:

>>> However, I find that the programmer is more important than the
>>> language. Good programmers can write good code in any language.
>>> Bad programmers can screw anything up.
>>
>> Fortran programmers can write Fortran in any language. :-)
>
>I was waiting for that !

Well they can... And do...

For my sins I have worked for a compiler company where the senior
developer came for a Fortran background. The C compiler was written
in C but the mind set was definitely Fortran. After 3 months working
on the C preprocessor I remember taking time out to refactor using
these strange things called loops and other magical and mystical
constructs.

Cheers,
Mark
--
|\ _,,,---,,_ A picture used to be worth a
ZZZzzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;, thousand words - then along
|,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' came television!
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)

Mark Stevens (mark at thepcsite fullstop co fullstop uk)

This message is provided "as is".
From: Robert Myers on
glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:
> Robert Myers <rbmyersusa(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> (snip)
>
>> This is not the place to discuss it, but, the need for a "portable
>> assembler," such as c, is debatable, since so much now is x86. VHDL is
>> not a realistic option for most applications programmers, but x86
>> assembler is. That's what the people I know who really want to write
>> fast code use, and, as for me, I'd rather read well-commented assembler
>> than the typical c program.
>
> I have written assembler for many machines and x86 is my least
> favorite. Well, I haven't written much for RISC machines,
> such as Sparc and HP-PA, but I think I would still prefer
> them over x86.
>

But that just transfers the discussion from language wars to ISA wars.
No one has gotten much out of any of those wars.

If fast code is your priority, you need to understand the hardware and
write in assembly language for the actual hardware you are using.

There are some issues about c and Fortran and how readily they can be
optimized without hand recoding, but I assume those issues have all been
thoroughly aired in this forum.

I frequently find code written in c to be nearly unreadable. That's a
more important consideration to me than speed.

If speed is your concern, then you should be using assembler, and, if
readability of your assembler is concerned, you should comment your work
so as to leave nothing to the imagination of whoever comes after you.
That advice would go for coding in c, too, but most c coders appear to
be beyond redemption.

If you are doing certain kinds of work, Fortran will probably produce
more readable code than c. If you are doing other kinds of work, the
opposite will likely be true.

Robert.
From: Phillip Helbig---undress to reply on
In article <i0hu98$ocp$1(a)speranza.aioe.org>, Jugoslav Dujic
<jdujic(a)yahoo.com> writes:

> On 29.06.2010. 23:22, Colin Watters wrote:
> > Here is an even more dated paper (1893) comparing Fortran and some other
> > languages:
>
> Jeez, I didn't know Fortran is *THAT* old :o)

FORTRAN IV even had a Roman numeral. :-)

From: glen herrmannsfeldt on
Robert Myers <rbmyersusa(a)gmail.com> wrote:
(snip, I wrote)

>> I have written assembler for many machines and x86 is my least
>> favorite.

> But that just transfers the discussion from language wars to ISA wars.
> No one has gotten much out of any of those wars.

That should be true, but I don't think it is.

I think the parts I don't like about x86 assembler are more
the way the MS assemblers work than the ISA itself.
The ways you specify address modes, for example.

-- glen