Re: My First Computer (was Computing Editorial)

["Really" <barryem@yahoo.com>]

"Lee Hart" <leeahart@earthlink.net> wrote in message
3E4D9187.577B@earthlink.net">news:3E4D9187.577B@earthlink.net...
> Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch wrote:
> >> When you're on the bottom rung of the ladder, you are very
close
> >> to the hardware. It is essential that you understand it.
>
> > No it isn't! Programming has to do with describing the way to
solve
> > a given problem in a formalized, exact way. This has much more
to
> > do with logical thinking and mathematics. Both is, and was for
many
> > centuries, not dependend on the hardware.

I went to a programming school in the 60's and the first thing we
learned after some basic theory was assembly language.  After that
Cobol.  Later RPG, which I never actually used except in school.

Through a 35 year programming career (I'm retired now) there was
never a month where something didn't make me very glad to have that
assembly experience, even though I never actually used assembly
during some years.

Writing in C, knowing how things actually worked in the computer, I
had a better understanding of why things didn't work or how to make
them work faster because I knew what was actually going on.

C was very handy as a problem oriented way to describe the program
but it wasn't what really happened.  A computer language is a
facade.  A wall we hide the hardware behind so we can think problem
instead of hardware.  But there are times when seeing behind the
wall can make a huge difference.

Also, the ability to view the program in a debugger, watching it in
assembly as it goes along, knowing precisely what is going on every
step of the way, gives the programmer a debugging tool that can
only be replaced by guesswork.

Barry