Cobra

[LooseCaboose]

Okay, okay. Im not trying to say that asm is completely useless to learn, just that I would (personally) recommend that people learn high level languages instead. For someone getting into general programming with an interest in making hobbyist games or simple applications, asm is way down the list of programming languages to learn. Moving to the future, things like Java and .NET are pushing programmers even futher away from needing asm. We are probably coming from different angles also, Im mostly into low-level system coding, and you guys are arguing from a game standpoint.

And they (C compilers) can't use such things such as mmx (i'm well aware of vectorC and intel c++), atleast in a good way

My version of gcc has arch flags for at least the following: pentium, pentium-pro, pentium-mmx, pentium2, pentium3, k6, k6-2, k6-3, athlon, athlon-tbird, athlon-xp and can compile code that utilises the extended instruction sets provided by each of those architectures. This is difficult for a pure assembley coder because each instruction set is different and multiple asm files would be needed to ensure portability (with a C version you just need a architecture detection script).

Assembly in Linux for i86s is just the same as it is in DOS/Windows. They only differ in the syntax.

They aren't quite the same when you get into more elaborate asm coding because you have to adhere to the operating systems conventions, such as function call setup, available interupts, alignment rules, etc.

In fact ASM is not a language at all but a syntactic way to issue instructions on a machine level.

Not quite, most symbolic asm languages contain pseudo-ops and shortcuts. The assembler directives are all pseudo ops, and even some instructions can produce multiple instructions once at machine level. The only example I can think of off hand is one for the sparc where the set operation actually produces a sethi and an or instruction at machine level because a 32-bit word cant fit into a single 32-bit instruction.

But ignoring things like that, knowing asm makes you a better high level coder as well. Becuase you know how the computer works and you're able to analyze the code the compiler generates.

This is true, but again relates more to someone who is coding at system level, when programming in a highlevel language it is generally a bad thing (IMHO) to be trying to program to the architecture. As I said, most of the asm work I do I work at a high-level language first and then compile to assembler to get a head start. The strcpy code I posted early is an example of knowing what produces better object code in a high-level language.

As for speed of algorithms etc, I disagree completely on using asm. If an algorithm is too slow in a high-level language then it is time to start looking at your data structures and algorithm code to see if you can improve it mathmatically, asm should be a last resort for speed here. (Especially as most modern compilers support optomizations such as loop unrolling and inline functions).

Asm is still used allot in the gamedev industry. Becuase there you have lots of innerloops which are time critical. In those situations nothing can replace asm.

I havent seen enough comercial game code to be able to comment on this with any amount of certaincy, however I mentioned earlier that the Quake2 source doesnt contain /any/ asm code in the OpenGL version. Not enough game companies are releasing their source code to be able to effectively comment on this. Hobbyist games are not always a good source, because as you said people can code poorly in any language and produce slow code, which may lead them to believe that they need asm code when a little extra work at a high level would do the trick.

So if you are going to learn assembley, then learn when you do and dont need it, how it relates to other languages and what alternatives exist. Dont take what I said to mean that nobody should ever learn asm, I meant that with the vast amount of libraries and advancments in hardware and software speed, asm is becoming less mandatory for general programming. It is still, and always will be highly necessary for niche programming.