Re: The Second Book Of Machine Language on the Web

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Bryan Parkoff wrote:

>Which machine language book is the best for advanced assembly
>programming?

Since you already have a fundamental grasp of assembly language,
I would recommend reading some good/great assembly language
programs.  Source may be a bit tricky to come by, which will
frequently call for disassembling the code.  In the process of
understanding and commenting the disassembled code, you
will learn a great deal about the machine you are studying and
how to do things with it.

If you have access to commented source, all the better.
The Apple II monitor is not commented, but it has very
well-written parts (you will notice some different styles).
Note that it is "optimized" to save space, not to maximize
structure, particularly.  (But, of course, it's small enough
that it can be comprehended "whole".)

For the conceptual basis of good programming, the actual
language (high-level or assembler) is not so important. A
good computer science/engineering text on the kind of
concepts you want to learn is fine (data structures,
compilers, sorting, etc.).  Don Knuth's "The Art of
Computer Programming" is without peer, and contains
excellent code examples and exercises.

But for actual programming, the very best preparation
is reading good code and learning from it.  You will see
a lot of techniques, some better, some worse, and you
can find what works best for your needs.

Although one can imagine a "tips and techniques" kind
of book for advanced programming, I would be quite
surprised if it worked as well as what I have suggested.

Studying existing examples of code that does things
like what you want to do is one of the very few ways of
getting the benefit of someone else's hard-won experience.

Of course, when you start doing some good-sized projects,
you will inevitably acquire some of your own hard-won
experience!  ;-)

Remember:  Good judgement comes from experience,
and experience comes from poor judgement.

-michael

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