Kernel-level routines, games, drivers, etc. all benefit from tight coding in assembly language.
I just want to kill an urban legend in the making. The public still seems to buy into the myth that games are written in tight assembly loops and game programmers are elite assembly hackers. This was true about 10 years ago. Modern games use very little assembly code. On a 25 man team, maybe only 1 person will write any assembly code at all (the lead graphics programmer). Even then, it will generally be only about 100-200 lines of GPU code.
Sometimes old assembly code will get grandfathered into a new project. A PS2 project I worked on had a few routines that were originally written for the Sega Genesis. Someone had translated the assembly code into C code so it would compile. All the local variables were named after registers and there were gotos everywhere instead of flow control statements. It was both sad and funny. The really sad part was that we shipped it that way because no one had time to waste rewriting something that worked.
I'll put my crudely coded Javascript quicksort algorithm against your finely honed 100% assembly bubblesort algorithm any day. Not only will my algorithm beat the pants off of your algorithm, but I'll also code it in far less time and with way fewer debugging sessions than you would.
I'll take your Javascript quicksort against my bubblesort. I have no doubt at all about who will win. You should try to really understand algorithms instead of just looking at the big-O in a reference table. It will make you a better programmer.
I don't understand why people are complaining about offshoring now. We've been offshoring for a very long time. We have always brought intelligent people from other places in the world to Silicon Valley. Why do you think there are so many Indian people in the Bay Area?
We should be celebrating now because we have learned how to do it more efficiently. Instead of paying an expensive wage to bring Indians to the US, now we cheaply bring the office to India. This saves companies a lot of money, which can be used to create new jobs.
I think it's funny that people complain about sending "American jobs" overseas. Wake up. Those jobs were never yours. They would have been filled by Indians anyway.
Note: I used Indians only as a popularly understood example. Please do not intrepret this as a post for or against Indian workers.
I fell kind of sorry for Bill. This is unfair for him. WHOA! Don't hit that Flamebait button, hear me out.
Let's adjust his approximate net worth of $40B for a middle class person with a new worth of $1M (Someone who might purchase stock regularly). A $50M investment for Bill is equivalent to $1,250. How would you like to report to the SEC everytime you bought $1,250 worth of stock?
Puzzle Pirates (referred to as YPP!) is a great game. I played it extensively when it first came out. At that time it seemed like a sleeper hit that would eventually reach up to 50,000 subscribers. An impressive number for a puzzle MMO.
Unfortunately, YPP! failed to live up to those high expectations. In my humble opinion the reason is because YPP! is too structured. The game is played by the rules and only by the rules. It is impossible to "think outside of the box" the way you can with a freeform 3D MMO.
After playing heavily for about 3 months I quit YPP! because I had fully explored the box. The game simply had no staying power for me. It was fun and a well polished game, but merely a game. After mastering every puzzle there was nothing more. It was reduced to a glorified chat program.
Slashdot Mirror
Nice pun there.
I just want to kill an urban legend in the making. The public still seems to buy into the myth that games are written in tight assembly loops and game programmers are elite assembly hackers. This was true about 10 years ago. Modern games use very little assembly code. On a 25 man team, maybe only 1 person will write any assembly code at all (the lead graphics programmer). Even then, it will generally be only about 100-200 lines of GPU code.
Sometimes old assembly code will get grandfathered into a new project. A PS2 project I worked on had a few routines that were originally written for the Sega Genesis. Someone had translated the assembly code into C code so it would compile. All the local variables were named after registers and there were gotos everywhere instead of flow control statements. It was both sad and funny. The really sad part was that we shipped it that way because no one had time to waste rewriting something that worked.
I'll put my crudely coded Javascript quicksort algorithm against your finely honed 100% assembly bubblesort algorithm any day. Not only will my algorithm beat the pants off of your algorithm, but I'll also code it in far less time and with way fewer debugging sessions than you would.I'll take your Javascript quicksort against my bubblesort. I have no doubt at all about who will win. You should try to really understand algorithms instead of just looking at the big-O in a reference table. It will make you a better programmer.
I don't understand why people are complaining about offshoring now. We've been offshoring for a very long time. We have always brought intelligent people from other places in the world to Silicon Valley. Why do you think there are so many Indian people in the Bay Area?
We should be celebrating now because we have learned how to do it more efficiently. Instead of paying an expensive wage to bring Indians to the US, now we cheaply bring the office to India. This saves companies a lot of money, which can be used to create new jobs.
I think it's funny that people complain about sending "American jobs" overseas. Wake up. Those jobs were never yours. They would have been filled by Indians anyway.
Note: I used Indians only as a popularly understood example. Please do not intrepret this as a post for or against Indian workers.
Rats can walk? Did I just wake up from a 100-year coma?
I fell kind of sorry for Bill. This is unfair for him. WHOA! Don't hit that Flamebait button, hear me out.
Let's adjust his approximate net worth of $40B for a middle class person with a new worth of $1M (Someone who might purchase stock regularly). A $50M investment for Bill is equivalent to $1,250. How would you like to report to the SEC everytime you bought $1,250 worth of stock?
Puzzle Pirates (referred to as YPP!) is a great game. I played it extensively when it first came out. At that time it seemed like a sleeper hit that would eventually reach up to 50,000 subscribers. An impressive number for a puzzle MMO.
Unfortunately, YPP! failed to live up to those high expectations. In my humble opinion the reason is because YPP! is too structured. The game is played by the rules and only by the rules. It is impossible to "think outside of the box" the way you can with a freeform 3D MMO.
After playing heavily for about 3 months I quit YPP! because I had fully explored the box. The game simply had no staying power for me. It was fun and a well polished game, but merely a game. After mastering every puzzle there was nothing more. It was reduced to a glorified chat program.