Comments and recomendations (for Randal Hyde)

[MusicalMike]

The idea of c++ programming dieing out like asm did is a sad thought in my oppinion.

I have by no means "mastered" the windows api yet. There are plenty of parts of the api I have never delt with before like winsock for instance. I am only resently becoming familior with the concept of "hooks"; and if you look at one of my other posts "writing a disassembler" you will see me having great difficulty with using the windows api for something. (Mostly because I am not getting the results I expect). You should never say you mastered anything. Its just to dangerous and there is always something you can learn.

[DarkWolf]

What Randal said earlier about a trend toward high-level interpreted languages (Java, Python, Ruby...) is correct.  They will never match the performance of ASM (and aren't likely to be used to write an Operating System or a FPS game)

Here is an operating system that is being coded in Python.
If I remember correctly, originaly they were starting out coding in ASM but switched to Python.
I don't know much more than that, I haven't followed the project.

http://unununium.org/

[MusicalMike]

A personal issue I have with most high level programming languages these days is that its getting to the point where programming is becomming so easy that a complete idiot can do it (VB6 anyone). Prety soon, the people who are actually tallented at programming, such as the people who subscribe to this forum, are going to be denied proper recognition because the same showboats that detract all attention from us in every other aspect of our lives are going to have a roll in the programming industry. That is in the end why I don't like the idea of programming being easy, and that is just another reason I enjoy using programming languages like C/C++ that are notoriously difficult to master.

[Randall Hyde]

A personal issue I have with most high level programming languages these days is that its getting to the point where programming is becomming so easy that a complete idiot can do it (VB6 anyone). Prety soon, the people who are actually tallented at programming, such as the people who subscribe to this forum, are going to be denied proper recognition because the same showboats that detract all attention from us in every other aspect of our lives are going to have a roll in the programming industry. That is in the end why I don't like the idea of programming being easy, and that is just another reason I enjoy using programming languages like C/C++ that are notoriously difficult to master.

:-)

I remember "back in the early days" of the Apple II when I was working on the Lisa assembler for an outfit name Programma International. The guy in charge of Programma was totally blown away by some stupid little graphics demos on the Apple II written by 16-year olds with no formal CS training and kept pointing at them as examples of great programmers.  Though I was hardly an "expert" at the time, I did have a degree in CS and was a bit frustrated at all the attention they were getting when they were doing incredibly simplistic things that didn't take much knowledge and were impressive only because of their splashyness. Later on, these same type of individuals would wind up doing the "copy protection" for the disks Programma was shipping. Again, I was told how *great* these guys were. I pointed out that this *one* thing is *all* they knew, and that knowledge alone didn't make great programmers. My explanations were greeted with blank stares.

Many years later, I learned how the guy was bragging behind my back about me to everyone else. So I guess you never really can tell what's going on in the world based on what you hear about certain groups of programmers.

BTW, most of those 16-year-olds went on to college, got degrees, and became well-known game programmers.

As for programmers getting the recognition they deserve -- how much recognition do we really deserve? When I was young, this was important to be. But having gained a bit of that recognition for myself, all I can say is that I'll take fortune over fame every time :-) Fame just gives you a load of trouble and you don't benefit much from it. Witness the attacks on myself by every "Randall Hyde wannabe" out there. And when it comes right down to it, that "fame" isn't very helpful when you need it. When I lost a job at the height of the dot-com bust, that fame didn't help me get a job any quicker, let me tell you.  Like I said, I'll take fortune over fame every time.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

[MusicalMike]

I am more about getting what you earn. Before I came accross your book, I had no interest in learning assembly language. I didn't see a need. As I said before, I love c++ programming, however let me admit this, it was not easy to learn. It took several months before I could even get trivial console apps to compile. (After geting my first programming experience with javascript, I shamefully admit that my first actual non html programming language was VB6 (yuck). VB did so much for you in terms of you writing windows apps, and even console apps that when I made the jump to C, much of what I was told I had to do as far as the code I was writing just didn't make sense. The idea of "handles" was incomprehendable to me, (although pointers were suprisingly easy to get), operator overloading was a nightmare, variable declairation syntax was nightmarish to learn, etc. It took months of painsteaking practice with a simple command line compiler and my book of choice, "C, HOW TO PROGRAM", before I got the hang of it. When I started learning C++ with the book, "C++ Primer Plus 5th Eddition" (by then I was so well versed in the language I just wanted to bone up on a few things) I gained a deep respect and enjoyment of using the language). Anyway, all that being said, I still remember the struggle of learning the language, and I only expected Assembly language to be harder. I figured, why even bother, I will probably never need to use it. I accidently came accross your book AoA when searching for something completely different. I had a whole summer of nothing to do, (If you want the honest to god truth, I have only been programming assembly since about 5 months ago.) I downloaded the book, installed the hla package, and read the book. To my pleasent surprise, the text was easy to understand, and get this, my very first program I wrote, "comipled" without a problem, and produced proper output. Later I moved to MASM. But, I can guarintee you, if you didn't write AoA, I would probably have never learned assembly language. (Thanks by the way). The fact is, you are well known and well reguarded, in some circles, as "a leading expert in assembly language programming". Basicly, now that I got all the flatery out of the way, if you do something remarkable, (such as create a tool "HLA" that can successfully teach a 16 year old one of the most advanced forms of computer programming around), you should be recognized for it. If you be come famous, and can't take the lime light, just stear clear of the poperatzi. But don't let yourself be denied the recognition you deserve, I sure won't if I do something substantial.