[cctalk] Re: What constitutes a dead computer language

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jun 18, 2026, at 1:01 PM, The Doctor via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> 
> wrote:
> 
> Jun 17, 2026, 10:56 by cctalk@classiccmp.org:
> 
>> Speaking of academia: clearly any "academic" who claims Assembler is dead is 
>> unqualified for the job.  It may be true that not very much application code 
>> is written in assembler.  But it should be obvious that competence in 
>> assembler is absolutely necessary in order to build a compiler -- in 
>> particular, a compiler back-end. 
>> 
> 
> It also calls into question the Operating Systems courses said academic's 
> employers offer.  As
> embarrassing (well, maybe un-sexy) as it would be to admit, a non-trivial 
> amount of platform
> specific assembly language is written for OSes (usually for drivers, but 
> there are other bits of the
> OS involved as well).  Even for simulation environments like OSP.
> --
> The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415/510]
> WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/
> My code, of course, begins with 4GH.

Right.  And unavoidably so in some cases.  Early startup code is  an example, I 
remember writing DRAM configuration code in MIPS assembler because it had to 
be.  And similarly I had to write a cache flush / powerfail handler in 
assembler because it was subject to constraints far beyond what a compilar can 
handle (not to mention it needed workarounds for undocumented prefetch pipeline 
bugs in the CPU in question).

        paul