-----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Tom Brennan Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 12:58
TB> The instructions, registers, etc. are not that difficult to learn. It's the macros, control blocks, subsystems, interrupts, memory layout, SVC's, (and I could go on and on) that can be the real value in doing ASM programming. If you're going to be a developer, or even installation sysprog, all that is important. Even when a C or Java or COBOL program fails, knowing how things work at the bottom can be the key to solving the issue. RHB> Reminds me of what I say about VBA. The language is easy, but getting useful in it requires knowledge of the object model of the app you're writing for (Excel, Access or whatever). That takes longer. Come to think of it I guess it's true of ~any~ oo language. TB> Skip Robinson once told me he started as an ASM application programmer. But I'll bet he was pretty-much the last one :) RHB> Not ENTIRELY the last one. I worked with an assembler programmer in, let's see, that would be 2012. I didn't think much of his debugging, but he was impressively competent when given clear instructions on the algorithm we needed. --- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 /* If the Earth were flat, cats would have pushed everything off it by now. */ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
