[Coco] Linville's ramblings on assembly vs machine code

[RETRO Innovations]

On 7/10/2017 1:20 AM, Dave Philipsen wrote:
> Ok, so the list seems rather quiet so I'll try to stir the pot a bit 
> here.  On the CoCo Crew Podcast John Linville rambled on for about 
> nine minutes telling us how machine code is essentially the same as 
> assembler and there's no reason to even try to learn it as it's simply 
> a different (and more difficult) way of 'saying' the same thing.
I was surprised it merited a segment on the show.  The attempt to show 
the debate "a distinction without a difference" seemed itself "a 
distinction without a difference" :-).

I know quite a few developers, and I've never heard of this debate. I 
think developers do make a distinction between ML and ASM, because there 
are times, as you note, when you're not in front of an assembler, and 
you need to make changes.  And, there are times when knowing how the 
code will assemble into opcodes allows finer control over the resulting 
program.  So, to distinguish the two ways of looking at the code, we use 
ML and ASM.

I think a more apt analogy is scientific names for plants.  Noone goes 
around complaining about /*Taraxacum officinale */in people's yard, but 
lots of folks either love or hate a yard full of common dandelions.  
Still, knowing the common plant's scientific name allows one to 
crossmatch it with similar plants in other countries, whereas the word 
dandelion loses the distinction.  Only stuck-up scientists go around 
chastising people who don't use the scientific name, and we tend to 
ignore those folks and not invite them to parties.  But, if I got a rash 
from one, I'd for sure ask the scientist for the complete scientific 
name, so I could be sure I was researching/understanding the correct plant.

Jim