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Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer

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On 11/4/2011 7:07 AM, gwowen wrote:
> On Nov 1, 1:49 pm, jacob navia<ja...@spamsink.net>  wrote:
>
>> ANY discussion in this group leads to
>>
>> "And in machine XXX (dead since at least 20 years) bytes were
>> 8.75 bits, remember that eh?"
>
> Who the hell writes x86 assembler professionally these days though?
> Video codec writers, perhaps.  Everyone else, if they're forced into
> writing assembly, its almost always because the target processor is
> *not* a general purpose.
>

lots of people write x86 assembler...

at this point, it is probably because there are still things one may 
want to do in a program, which are not readily possible (or practical) 
purely within C or similar, so someone needs ASM to make it work correctly.

performance is sometimes a motivation, probably more often it is to 
either use HW specific features, or to work around some natural limits 
in how C works and is implemented on processors.


a simple example would be writing a general purpose "apply" function, 
where one calls a function pointer with an arbitrary (only known at 
runtime) argument list.

in C, this essentially requires a (potentially massive) switch 
statement, which requires converting the argument list into a number, 
... and generally ends up kind of slow, and adding a fair amount of size 
to the final binary.

in ASM, the task is much more straightforward.
hence, ASM ends up being preferable here.

likewise, going the reverse, and for things like constructing lambdas 
(which look/behave like ordinary function pointers), ...

maybe:
try to write a pure C implementation of something like setjmp/longjmp;
...


> Clue: The x86 and its descendants are not the most widely produced
> microprocessors in the world - and it isn't even close - even for
> things that are, loosely, general purpose computers.   And, given that
> smartphones and tablets and the like appear to be future, that gap is
> going to widen, and not close.
>

people say that "smartphones/tablets/... as future", however this seems 
unlikely. far more likely, they will be used alongside desktops and 
laptops and like, and after a few years people will wonder why their 
sales drop so much: "oh yeah... market saturation...".

for most small embedded devices, the number of units is misleading, as 
most are non-programmable, so maybe a few people produce the original 
software for a given device, but they run off millions of units. doesn't 
mean that this constitutes a larger amount of total work (by 
programmers), only that a large number of units have been produced.


> So, if you're going to talk chip-specific assembler, and you're not
> using an ARM instruction set, you're talking about a niche market.

x86 is likely still most commonly used, even for assembler.
ARM probably comes in second, and most of this is likely people writing 
software for Android or similar, and doing something which needs ASM.

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Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer "a.owens@novartisoft.com" <a.owens@novartisoft.com> - 2011-10-30 19:47 -0700
  Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer jgharston <jgh@arcade.demon.co.uk> - 2011-10-31 07:05 -0700
    Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2011-10-31 07:38 -0700
      Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer jgharston <jgh@arcade.demon.co.uk> - 2011-10-31 08:51 -0700
        Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2011-10-31 16:39 +0000
          Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2011-10-31 12:58 -0400
            Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Ark <akhasin@macroexpressions.com> - 2011-11-04 04:51 -0400
          Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Acid Washed China Blue Jeans <chine.bleu@yahoo.com> - 2011-10-31 10:28 -0700
          Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Frederick Williams <freddywilliams@btinternet.com> - 2011-10-31 17:55 +0000
            Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-01 06:29 -0700
              Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> - 2011-11-01 14:49 +0100
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2011-11-01 14:23 +0000
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-02 07:41 +1300
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-01 15:43 -0700
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer gwowen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2011-11-04 07:07 -0700
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-04 08:30 -0700
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer gwowen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2011-11-04 09:13 -0700
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2011-11-06 21:50 +0000
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-11-04 16:37 +0000
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2011-11-04 13:01 -0500
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2011-11-04 11:27 -0700
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-04 15:36 -0700
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-05 11:46 +1300
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-04 16:31 -0700
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-05 12:52 +1300
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-04 17:21 -0700
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-05 13:55 +1300
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-04 23:23 -0700
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2011-11-05 04:21 -0700
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Seebs <usenet-nospam@seebs.net> - 2011-11-06 07:40 +0000
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2011-11-06 09:35 +0100
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-11-06 16:34 +0000
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-06 12:47 -0700
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-11-05 00:31 +0000
                Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2011-11-05 02:29 -0700
          Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> - 2011-10-31 13:03 -0700
          Re: Looking for experienced C/C++ / ASM programmer jgk@panix.com (Joe keane) - 2011-11-04 13:12 +0000

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