"We Never Use Assembly Language"
in [ASM]
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From: randyhyde@earthlink.net on 10 Mar 2006 14:44 Check out http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~dpw/popl/06/Tim-POPL.ppt This is a talk Tim Sweeny gave on programming languages at POPL (a very high-end programming languages conference) on language design goals that game programmers are interested it. Despite the obvious knock against using assembly language, it discusses several language features that game programmers want (and why assembly is bad). Of course, there is the quote "we will gladly give up 10% of our performance for 10% improved productivity." Does this also mean they'll give up 50% of the performance for 50% productivity? :-) Interestingly enough, this was in the section that discussed how important performance is. Cheers, Randy Hyde
From: o//annabee on 10 Mar 2006 15:16 P? Fri, 10 Mar 2006 20:44:25 +0100, skrev randyhyde(a)earthlink.net <randyhyde(a)earthlink.net>: > Check out > http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~dpw/popl/06/Tim-POPL.ppt > > This is a talk Tim Sweeny gave on programming languages at POPL (a very > high-end programming languages conference) on language design goals > that game programmers are interested it. Despite the obvious knock > against using assembly language, it discusses several language features > that game programmers want (and why assembly is bad). If you only argument here is that assembly is bad, can you please leave the group and go to a yac, Bison or C ng and bother them instead. Assembly is the less complicated and most wonderful thing in the world. The reason you hate it, is that you cannot lie in asm. > Of course, there is the quote "we will gladly give up 10% of our > performance for 10% improved productivity." Does this also mean they'll > give up 50% of the performance for 50% productivity? :-) Interestingly > enough, this was in the section that discussed how important > performance is. > Cheers, > Randy Hyde > -- Sendt med Operas revolusjonerende e-postprogram: http://www.opera.com/mail/
From: Dave Turner on 10 Mar 2006 16:06 > you cannot lie in asm. Interesting perception, i like that
From: ldb on 10 Mar 2006 16:17 However he also says they use "simd intrinsics". To me, using intrinsics is essentially assembly programming. Doing your for-loop in C++, and having the meat being all SIMD instrinics seems like a logical way to proceed. You aren't going to get much performance increase by switching the entire loop into assembly. I think his main point (from skimming the talk) talks about 80% of the computation time being "embarassingly" parrallel and the need for a language that can encapsulate that more simply. Really, it seems, we are headed to a better GPU language that handles SIMD operations more effeciently. I think that's the main point.
From: randyhyde@earthlink.net on 10 Mar 2006 16:29
o//annabee wrote: > > If you only argument here is that assembly is bad, can you please leave > the group and go to a yac, Bison or C ng and bother them instead. I think you are confusing me with Tim Sweeny. These are not my comments. I'm only pointing out what well-respected programmers are saying about assembly language. And if you are so bothered by my posts, why don't you do us both a favor and add me to your killfile? > > Assembly is the less complicated and most wonderful thing in the world. You might try looking at the presentation. Several of the things that Tim requests from language designers are explicitly *not* provided in assembly. That makes it more complex (because you have to do this stuff manually) and less "wonderful" for such people. If you would to *provide* the tools to do these jobs, maybe you would have a point. But your response always seems to be "well, I don't need to do that so it can't be important." However, professional programmers need to do these kinds of things, so it *is* important to them. No amount of groundless claims about simplicity or wonderfulness on your part will change that. These people don't agree with you (and for good reason, I might add). You don't make a very convincing argument to counter their claims by simply saying "Assembly is the less complicated ..." > The reason you hate it, is that you cannot lie in asm. If I hate assembly so much, why do I write so many books on it? Why would I waste time in a newsgroup such as this one, if that were the case? Why would I spend so much time working on an assembler? I think you confuse the concept of "hate assembly" with "hate all all other languages but assembly." The two ideas are not the same. The fact that someone recognizes that assembly is not the tool for every job in no way implies that they hate assembly. Cheers, Randy Hyde |