Steve Smith wrote: >A couple of clarifications:
>1a. I did not say EQU was harmful. It's actually invaluable. >1b. I did not say '*' was harmful. It's actually invaluable. >2. Show me an EQU * that couldn't easily be replaced by DC 0X (or 0H, or >0F, or 0D, or 0LQ). >If you personally prefer the "look" of EQU * over DS/DC 0? that's your >prerogative. But your preference is for a symbol with no type, no >alignment, and a default length. I think you could get over it if you >tried. Ooh, I loves me a good theological argument! I disagree that DS 0X is somehow better. EQU * says "Here, damnit, just a pin in the ground", and when that's what you want, is thus preferable; DS 0X implies a bit more (to me at least). In fact, I've always slightly disliked DS 0H on labels, despite having used it religiously for the last 38.5 years of writing assembler. I'd be happier if there was a LABEL pseudo-instruction that did the same thing, but required a label. Then it would be 100% clear "This here thingy is a label, that's all!" (Yes, I could use a macro, but.) So yes, an EQU * could "easily be replaced", but not necessarily winding up with something better. Semi-OT ramble warning: Long ago and far away I had to take a Commodore SuperPet assembler course. I had been writing 370 assembler for several years at that point, doing systems work on VM/SP, so the toy assembler was not much of a challenge. For our final project, we had to write a stupid game. Mine mostly worked: I couldn't be arsed to take the time to count stuff, so it was a wee bit confused about screen boundaries, would wrap sometimes by one pixel (or more like one character-wasn't exactly an APA display). But the basics were right, and it was submitted as code, not a demo. I got a 48 out of 50. The TA who marked it deducted two points: one for having subroutines that tested a single thing and returned a condition code as an indicator (he wanted an actual value), and one for using the equivalent of EQU * on labels (there was no DS 0H). He said the latter was "unnecessary", couldn't explain why the former was bad. I complained to the professor (Wes Graham, whom you have likely heard of-WATFOR, WATFIV, WATCOM) who shrugged and said "48/50 is a pretty good grade". And at that point, I dropped out of computer science, concluding that the "teaching" was a waste of my time. Mind you, I already knew Graham was mostly a fraud (shh, I know, we don't talk about that). The funniest part was that a buddy in the class, who was up all night making his program work perfectly, got 45/50. He was most unhappy about my grade! I suppose it's time to let this go, eh? It's been 35+ years and Graham has been dead for almost 20 of 'em. ...phsiii
