Raffael Cavallaro <raffael@mediaone.net> wrote:
+---------------
| How many fewer programmers would there be if programming still meant
| entering raw op-codes in order to specify a program? I know that I for
| one wouldn't be programming.
+---------------

Well, having spent the first few years of the programming side of my life
coding *assembler* (for the LGP-30, IBM 1410, IBM 1620, DEC PDP-10, PDP-8,
PDP-11, Zilog Z-80, to name a few), I assure you that serious assembly-
language programmers very quickly build up a library of macros and
subroutines that are roughly at the level of abstraction as "libc"
(or even Lisp!), and then code at the level of macro and/or subroutine
calls.

Of course, the macro systems available for assemblers in those days
were of nearly the same power as Lisp macros (that is, dynamic compile-
time re-writing of code), making the whole task of abstraction building
a *lot* easier!

Was it Tony Hoare who said this?

    "I always program in the same language, no matter what the compiler is."


-Rob

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Rob Warnock, PP-ASEL-IA		<rpw3@rpw3.org>
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