The value of assembler language programmers [was RE: Algol vs Fortran was RE: VHDL vs Verilog]

[Ethan Dicks]

On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 8:52 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
> On Feb 9, 2010, at 8:34 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
>>
>> I myself have only ever programmed AVRs in C (including older parts
>> that had a mere 2K of code space), but I've done some PIC and MCS51
>> assembler in the past 5 years.  Not much point to it usually, though.
>> That much optimization is rarely needed in a part that has limited I/O
>> and very limited memory.
>
>  That's funny, I find that sort of optimization is required *because* the
> parts have limited memory. ;)  (not arguing about I/O though)

I was unclear - I meant time/cycle optimization, not space optimization.

For bang-for-the-buck, AVRs are pretty good.  The most expensive one I
ever bought was just over $3.

>  On 8051 designs, I always code very low-level routines that will be called
> a lot in assembler.  Stuff like the low-level UART drivers for maintaining
> serial output buffers and such.  The rest I generally do in C.  I rarely
> write pure-C 8051 programs.

Sure... serial comms are one of those time-sensitive things like
video.  When I used to write protocol engine code, our Z8530 routines
were in assembler and 95% of the rest of the code was C (even the DMA
engine code).

-ethan