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There is something wonderful about low level programming langauges. I enjoy writing code and knowing exactly what the ASM is going to look like. Python is fun

There is something wonderful about low level programming langauges. I enjoy writing code and knowing exactly what the ASM is going to look like. Python is fun, but I've got no idea how it is doing what it does.

domlebo70 14y ago
How often do you need to know what it's doing?
- gouranga 14y ago
  Usually when something doesn't go as quick as you were hoping, profiling is unhelpful and you have to take the python bytecode to bits to find out what the hell it's doing inside. That happens quite a bit these days for me.
  - uhhyeahdude 14y ago
    Oh, and this. For sure. Why is everything so slow?!
    - gouranga 14y ago
      > Why is everything so slow?! Urf tell me about it. Does my flipping head in.
- bornhuetter 14y ago
  I used to play around with 3D graphics in real-time on the 486. I needed to know exactly what was going on to even get 30 fps. I managed to get one of Michael Abrash's (ID software)loops to run 0.5 clock cycles faster, which I was pretty proud of.
- uhhyeahdude 14y ago
  When you are attempting to do a very specific thing. Not going to go into what that might be, unless you're curious, but sometimes you do need to know exactly or as close to exactly how your code is operating.
uhhyeahdude 14y ago
This is exactly why I'm learning the various ASM right now. I am not content (depending on what I'm trying to do, of course) with a program just doing "something" that works.
simias 14y ago
This is very true but in my experience it's not always a good thing. It often leads me to premature optimization for instance.
- techdmn 14y ago
  I've been working on some ideas about how different languages lead to different sorts of premature optimization problems. I see a lot of OOP problems where developers try to avoid re-initializing or re-instantiating an object, and end up with weird partial-initialization or wrong initialization edge cases. I think language structure encourages this, and have been thinking about what other sorts of premature-optimization problems languages encourage.

domlebo70 14y ago

How often do you need to know what it's doing?

gouranga 14y ago
Usually when something doesn't go as quick as you were hoping, profiling is unhelpful and you have to take the python bytecode to bits to find out what the hell it's doing inside. That happens quite a bit these days for me.
- uhhyeahdude 14y ago
  Oh, and this. For sure. Why is everything so slow?!
  - gouranga 14y ago
    > Why is everything so slow?! Urf tell me about it. Does my flipping head in.
bornhuetter 14y ago
I used to play around with 3D graphics in real-time on the 486. I needed to know exactly what was going on to even get 30 fps. I managed to get one of Michael Abrash's (ID software)loops to run 0.5 clock cycles faster, which I was pretty proud of.
uhhyeahdude 14y ago
When you are attempting to do a very specific thing. Not going to go into what that might be, unless you're curious, but sometimes you do need to know exactly or as close to exactly how your code is operating.

uhhyeahdude 14y ago

This is exactly why I'm learning the various ASM right now. I am not content (depending on what I'm trying to do, of course) with a program just doing "something" that works.

simias 14y ago

This is very true but in my experience it's not always a good thing. It often leads me to premature optimization for instance.

techdmn 14y ago
I've been working on some ideas about how different languages lead to different sorts of premature optimization problems. I see a lot of OOP problems where developers try to avoid re-initializing or re-instantiating an object, and end up with weird partial-initialization or wrong initialization edge cases. I think language structure encourages this, and have been thinking about what other sorts of premature-optimization problems languages encourage.