3 ms·
GCC outputs textual GNU assembly language, in which I have written, for example, a web server, a Tetris game, a Forth interpreter, and an interpreter for an obj
by kragen 1y ago
GCC outputs textual GNU assembly language, in which I have written, for example, a web server, a Tetris game, a Forth interpreter, and an interpreter for an object-oriented language with pattern-matching. Perhaps you are under the illusion that I am not a human programmer because this is some kind of superhuman feat, but to me it seems easier than programming in high-level languages. It just takes longer. I think that's a common experience.
Historically speaking, almost all video games and operating systems were written in assembly languages similar to this until the 80s.
- NuclearPM 1y agoYou’re being \__
- crazygringo 1y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45912557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45912557
- kragen 1y agoThank you for the link; I've responded comprehensively at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45914592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45914592.
- oersted 1y agoOf course I'm aware of this, I've written some assembly too, most definitions are leaky. And if GNU assembly had wide adoption among programmers right now and an ecosystem around it, then some people might also call GCC a transpiler (in that specific mode, which is not the default), if they care about the fact that it outputs in a language that they may read or write by hand comfortably. They also called C a high-level language at that time. There was also more emphasis on the distinction between assemblers and compilers. Indeed, they may have used the word compiler more in the sense we use transpiler now, I'm sure people were also saying that it was just a fancy assembler. Terminology shifts.
- kragen 1y agoI think what happened was that, when writing in assembly language was a common thing to do, programmers had a clearer idea of what a compiler did, so they knew better than to say "transpiler".