My Introduction to Hla

[Nonameo]

Hey Randy, i would just like to give you a little bit of praise...

When i heard about Hla, i assumed it was yet another assembler, "why would i need hla when i can do high level code in MASM like Invoke .if .endif etc.." i asked myself.

I had a look at some simple Hla source code and saw that it used a lot of brackets, and i dismissed the language as a waste of time. "MASM with brackets". I thought it was no more "high level" than MASM.

but i couldnt be further from the truth.

I eventually re-tried Hla to prove to myself that it was a waste of time, i attemped to do a Nested Function like in higher level languages, i was convinced it would not compile.

To my amazement, it compiled and ran perfectly, then i tried putting a function call inside an If statement, which also worked.

I am now dedicating some of my MASM programming time into learning Hla, i recommend Hla to anyone.

Thanks

-Nonameo-

[Randall Hyde]

Hey Randy, i would just like to give you a little bit of praise...

Well, thanks for all the kind words...

[quote[
When i heard about Hla, i assumed it was yet another assembler, "why would i need hla when i can do high level code in MASM like Invoke .if .endif etc.." i asked myself.

Probably the second most common perception from people who already know an assembly language (the most common perception, obviously incorrect, is that HLA is just a HLL and not an assembly language).

Of course, if you read this:
http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AsmTools/HLA/HLADoc/HTMLDoc/teachingASM.html
You'll find that my biggest gripe with MASM was the lack of power in the macro facilities (well, MASM has quite powerful macros, but I needed more). Instruction composition, which allows function calls in IF statements and the like, was actually added as an afterthought; though it turned out to be a very important facility indeed.

I had a look at some simple Hla source code and saw that it used a lot of brackets, and i dismissed the language as a waste of time. "MASM with brackets". I thought it was no more "high level" than MASM.

Another common complaint. Yet people *praise* the presence of (square) brackets in FASM and NASM. Hmmm....

I eventually re-tried Hla to prove to myself that it was a waste of time, i attemped to do a Nested Function like in higher level languages, i was convinced it would not compile.

:-)

You can even access intermediate variables (locals declared in the nesting procedures), but you *do* have to set up the display yourself. See
http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AoA/Windows/PDFs/LexicalNesting.pdf
for details.

I am now dedicating some of my MASM programming time into learning Hla, i recommend Hla to anyone.

That should endear you with Rene Tournois :-)
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

[Sultan]

Randy:

YOU ARE GREAT  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers from Mexico.

Sultan