Assembly arena these days - what do you work on?

[Martinigue]

Hi coders,

I've been thinking about a to-the-point title to my post but failed to come up with one as you can see above  :wink, so here it is, 'translated': In the days of .NET typing (I do not dare call it programming), thin clients and HTML / JS scripting and xml - what are your projects, that let you enjoy the beauty of dealing with pure assembly on daily basis? I used to be a kind of a hardcore asm / C / C++ programmer years ago, but with the emergence of .NET and similar technologies it became obvious that I'd gradually have to stick to these ( a push from my employers - a push from the market, that is) and give up my 'beloved ones', so I decided to move up to the management sphere; being this type of a programmer simply was no fun for me anymore. But the assembly still remains in my heart and I want to get back (although as a mere hobbyist) to the world of registers and opcodes but - which way to go, these days? One of my ideas is the demo-coding scene but it does not seem to be talked about here much, so - could you guys share a few ideas with me?
Mac

[u]

DSP, middleware (2D/3D engines).
Use the HLLs to do your primary job quickly, and spend the remaining time having fun with x86 asm. Non-x86 asm is already getting on my nerves, but I'm thinking of making some middleware for the playstation3's SPE units of the Cell cpu. Yet, only x86 asm has the irreplaceable feature of powerful macros.

[donkey]

No real projects on the go right now, I was away from programming for quite some time and have to revive a couple once I get back up to speed. Right now I am experimenting with Scintilla, a lexer/custom control that looks interesting at least it beats the hell out of RichEdit.

[MazeGen]

From my local experience, AV companies are still calling for asmers (reversing viruses and malware). There are also a few anti-cracking companies employing asm.

And compiler developers needs to know asm as well.

[VLaaD]

IMHO, knowing the assembly when you are an manager (the ultimate step in this regression spiral is "The Sales Dept.", fun is always there) doesn't hurt - in fact, by following such enforced lifepath (otherwise, we would be, probably, all being relaxed, coding something really cool together, spared from cruel daily existential trivia  :dance:) it is just matter of time when you will get into a position when you will be asked to introduce the measurement system based on statistics and to measure the others people work and report it to the guys you are paid by, in cash ("For a Fistfull of Dollars").

If you are a manager or going to be the one, use to live with it. If you have soul - you'll also think about that what these poor bastards have to do to survive, however rude and hopeless they may look like, they are still human beings. And, indirectly, how long they will live depends also on you. Scared or amused at this point? Another good point - show no mercy and no remorse, have bloody phun! - cut the throat of that stupid thing called empathy and become employee of the month, that nice shiny cup with company's motto must be yours!

Or, perhaps, it can help you to enforce the manufacturer of the security solution you are using Enterprise-wide to finally patch, at least for a few months, their dull trashware (which dug few thousand graves for better ideas than it represents in order to survive) for which your company paid net amount >= USHORT_MAX in last Q4. After this critical threshold it really becomes irrelevant whether the currency we are talking about is €, $ or £. Good point! USHORT_MAX!

Then, the final and expected development of such case includes as well that old greedy Hitler from the Board of shareholders who is constantly breathing behind your neck - being aware of all these factors, we can draw pretty fast the conclusion that the knowledge can be even (your own) life saver.

So the answer could be to stay in the IT or INFOSEC and be one of The Last Masters of Assembly(R)(C)(TM)(ETC.) watching his little world disappearing without leaving a single trace in this sand (are you on the Dark Side with the Master, or with the rest of us, poor but lionhearted Jedi's?)

Paradox and the glory is that the trade is killing the existing art and skills - while new arts are arising from the money earned in that trade, which is always based on the war in which, we all know - nobody is spared and everybody is innocent. That's how we learned assembly, I didn't forget. Something died at that moment.

So, finally, if the marketing and sales are everything we are going to be, and that is the way the things must be, AND we still want to be the best in them like we tried to do each time in our lives - we must accept that we should sell one of the following: firearms, people, movies, dope or petrol. Be happy, because you have even a freedom of choice (which is eternally covered by the Pink Floyd's "Nobody home" verses: "I've got a strong urge to fly - but I've got nowhere to fly to").

Yes, I have to use Seroxat on daily basis, it lasts few years from now. How did you know that?  :toothy

[BogdanOntanu]

for an AV company ;)