== Quote from Walter Bright ([email protected])'s article > Georg Wrede wrote: > > - It has to be compiled to genuine executable code. The psychological > > weight of "knowing" what your code does, as opposed to a diffuse wish > > "associated with your code to be interpreted, depending on the > > interpreter at hand [as opposed to actually disassembling the executable > > and seeing for yourself the actual result!]", simply can't be > > underestimated. (I've really seen the difference with my students -- and > > how they've later fared in this arena.) > When I learned programming, I never "got it" until I learned assembler > and started comparing the language source code with the assembler > emitted by the compiler.
I know what you're saying. In general I never feel like I really "get" anything until I understand it on multiple levels of abstraction. For example, it took me forever to understand object-oriented programming. The semantics just seemed too arbitrary. What made me finally get it was: 1. Reading about design patterns (moving up a level of abstraction). 2. Understanding vtables and function pointers (moving down a level of abstraction).
