Assemblers

culdev1!drw@eddie.mit.edu (Dale Worley)
23 Dec 87 15:44:21 GMT

          From comp.compilers
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From: culdev1!drw@eddie.mit.edu (Dale Worley)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 23 Dec 87 15:44:21 GMT
Organization: Cullinet Software, Westwood, MA, USA

Somebody writes:
| The list is shrinking, but we should still remember that today, in terms
| of customer demand, most software is written in assembler. So it is
| surprising that assembler tools aren't better, and it's also interesting
| that for all the advances in compiler technology, assembler programs still
| dominate.


Quite true. But one can also say: In terms of man-hours spent, most
software is written in Cobol. (Three-quarters (!) of all professional
programmers write in Cobol.)


The difference between these two statements isn't surprising...
Programs which are written once and used zillions of times are written
in assembler because the cost/benefit tradeoff favors it. Programs
which are not distributed so much have different tradeoffs.


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Dale Worley Cullinet Software ARPA: culdev1!drw@eddie.mit.edu
UUCP: ...!seismo!harvard!mit-eddie!culdev1!drw
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