Re: High Level Language vs Assembly

Kevin Szabo <kszabo@nortelnetworks.com> wrote:
>
> So, now it is 2001 and there is still a shop writing significant
> assembler, and viewing HLL with disdain. Working in this environment
> is a very precarious career position.


*Every* position is precarious. I have learned C++, a skill that will
be useless in a decade. I have learned Pascal and Delphi, a skill that
guaranteed a job ten years ago and is obsolete today. My CP/M skills
are even more out of date. I'm currently learning Java; we'll see how
long that lasts. I have an Eiffel skill that's unmarketable, except
that I can say (and have said) that this makes my OO skills different
in useful ways - not that it's unlikely that OO skills will be
marketable for more than a decade or two.


My bet for the next decade is functional programming. The transition
from imperative and OO to functional is as large as from assembly to
HLL, so who's working in a Shop that Time Forgot?


Then there's the thing that whatever you do, you have to specialize to
do it well. Which means you're in a niche as well, and you'll have to
retrain as soon as that niche erodes.


I agree that assembly is a niche, and getting kicked out of it can be
harder than for many other niches. And the assembly niche can't be
expected to be growing.


However, anybody who is in that niche should just exploit it as long
as he can (retraining is always a large effort), and be prepared for
another niche. Just as anybody working in the IT industry should.


Just my 2c.


(I found it always hilarious how people from outside a community
patronize community members. I think this is highly inappropriate;
outsiders almost never know the constraints that the community members
are acting under. Of course, community members usually don't
understand the outside world, so their views are skewed as well... but
this doesn't make their views less valid than those of outsiders.
Well, 'nuff said.)


Regards,
Joachim
[Last message on this side-topic. -John]

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