I agree completely. I started my career coding in assembly language (yes, I'm old). When I started using C I thought I had died and gone to heaven because I was 10 TIMES more productive with C.
Like most assembly language programmers, I went through the compiler generated assembly for my first couple of C programs because I wanted to see how bad a job the compiler did. I found that the assembly was hard to understand but very efficient. There were very few places where I could have done better.
As to learning computer science, I think the only value in using assembly language as a teaching tool is that assembly language requires extremely careful attention to detail and patience. So maybe it serves as a screening process because good developers need lots of both. However, algorithms, data structures, OO, patterns, etc. are far more important to learn than assembler.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree completely. I started my career coding in assembly language (yes, I'm old). When I started using C I thought I had died and gone to heaven because I was 10 TIMES more productive with C.
Like most assembly language programmers, I went through the compiler generated assembly for my first couple of C programs because I wanted to see how bad a job the compiler did. I found that the assembly was hard to understand but very efficient. There were very few places where I could have done better.
As to learning computer science, I think the only value in using assembly language as a teaching tool is that assembly language requires extremely careful attention to detail and patience. So maybe it serves as a screening process because good developers need lots of both. However, algorithms, data structures, OO, patterns, etc. are far more important to learn than assembler.