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Is Assembly Programming Still Relevant, Today?

Posted by Cliff on from the mov-eax,1 dept.

intelinsight asks: "Consider the following question given the current software development needs, and also the claims of the Assembly lovers for it being a language that gives one insights of the internal working of a computer. How relevant or useful is it to learn Assembly programming language in the current era? "

3 of 676 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Isn't it the root of all programming languages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I thought Evil was the root of all programming languages? Wait, no, that's Microsoft. No, wait, Microsoft is the root of Evil.. Money... eh, forget about it.

  2. Well, no. by RonBurk · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    For the ignorant,

    First, for 90% of the calls to strcat() in real life, a more "efficient" coding replacement will be more error-prone and will not make the software faster enough to be perceptible by humans.

    Second, a big percentage of folks who think they know how to be faster than strcat() have no clue how the disparity between processor speeds and memory fetches has increased over the years, rendering dumb ol' strcat() awfully fast. If the "more efficient" code that doesn't call strcat() causes a couple of main memory fetches, it may well be slower than a dumb ol' call to strcat() on that string that's still in cache.

    Nobody knows nuthin' about efficiency unless they've measured.

  3. Re:Would you trust these professionals? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Here here!

    Where? Where?

    http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhear.html