> >>I respect the ability to learn and use Assembler too. > I don't think its a question of respect. > There cannot be a good programer if he hasn't learn > some assembly some time in his life. Only machine > language will teach you how a machine works, and > this is an essential basis in order to understand > how to optimize code. If you only learn high level > languages, you're missing the essentials.
> Its like flying an airplane without having > elementary basics in aerodynamics. I would say it's more like flying a plane without being a mechanic, which I believe is true of a lot of pilots. Aerodynamics is theory and you can understand the theory without personally tightening bolts on the engine. > I started my career on a machine that had 56k memory, > at 1 MHz, I can tell you Assembler was a must, even > if we had FORTRAN at that time. > Now, when I hear yellow feet talking about OOP > technology that "helps RE-use code", > it makes me laugh ;-)) Things have changed a lot in the intervening years, and continue to change. The nature of technology is such that the passage of time will always degrade the importance of optimization. We are currently at a point where optimization is still important, but not nearly so much so as it was ten or twenty years ago. Case in point, we now use 4 digits in our dates. By comparison, the human factors involved in software development and maintenance are not going away -- not now, not ever. An application which is slow today will be indistinguishable (by humans) from an optimized version of the same application in 20 years. An application which is difficult to maintain now will be difficult to maintain in 20 years. So a person's understanding of extreme low-level concepts like deferred writes will continue to be less important as compared to a person's understanding of high-level concepts like encapsulation and syntactical extensibility which will continue to become more important as the hardware supports increasingly less optimized code (allowing increasingly more abstraction) with humanly indistinguishable efficiency. I'm not familiar with the expression "yellow feet". Wikipedia and dictionary.com don't produce any results. My best guess would be that it means either someone who's an amateur or someone who's afraid of a challenge. In either case, I'd have a look at the rule-manager components I designed before you make that kind of judgement. s. isaac dealey 434.293.6201 new epoch : isn't it time for a change? add features without fixtures with the onTap open source framework http://www.fusiontap.com http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/author/4806Dealey.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:237388 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
