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What on earth are you talking about? Assembly makes sense in desktop computing as well. Have you ever, for example, watched a video? What do you think powers th

What on earth are you talking about? Assembly makes sense in desktop computing as well. Have you ever, for example, watched a video? What do you think powers the codecs, JSX?

xnorswap 5mo ago
I'd assume most are written in C or some other higher level language. Certainly I checked the x264 ( VLC implementation of h264 ) and that is C.
- otherjason 5mo ago
  The statistics reported by GitLab for the x264 repo (https://code.videolan.org/videolan/x264 https://code.videolan.org/videolan/x264) report that the project is 13.5% assembly; common utilities used in the inner loops of the codec have optimized assembly implementations for several CPU architectures.
  - xnorswap 5mo ago
    I stand corrected.
    - jamal-kumar 5mo ago
      A lot of the encoding side on ffmpeg now uses hand-coded assembly optimizations to take advantage of avx512 instructions on newer x64 processors for "100x speed increase" since February 2025 in a stable form https://www.techspot.com/news/108715-ffmpeg-gets-100x-faster-avx-512-handwritten-assembly.html https://www.techspot.com/news/108715-ffmpeg-gets-100x-faster...
thisislife2 5mo ago
Yes, I do know that some Assembly is used in systems programming and other niches where it makes sense. To be clear, I was talking about the phase some of us go through (as amateurs) when we think everything would be "faster, smaller, better" if written in assembly - Python is slow. What about C or Pascal? Wouldn't asm be faster? ... but, as we all realise sooner or later, there's a reason we prefer to code in high-level or very high-level languages, and why pre-mature optimisation can be a real handicap.
- hatefulheart 5mo ago
  Ah yes, the niche that is video, audio, game and systems programming. When those three to four amateurs still doing those niche things grow up they’ll move on to real programming, like putting together a solid skills.md file.
  - perching_aix 5mo ago
    Ah yes, assembly in contemporary game and systems programming. Definitely an everyday encounter, along with the millions of AV codec developers. What?
    - hatefulheart 5mo ago
      You’re absolutely right! If a project has less than 1 million active developers it must be old and shite!
      - perching_aix 5mo ago
        Sounds like I was absolutely right alright, and so was @thisislife2. Just yet another pitiful case of falling for the "hard truths <-> hurt feelings" reversal. Not even sure why. Something being niche is not a knock, not one way, not another. Such a weird thing to throw a sad fit like this about.
        hatefulheart 5mo ago
        I interact with Assembly everyday and many of those around me do too. So I wouldn’t label it as niche. If there are thousands of people doing something in computing, it ain’t niche. It’s niche when the numbers are much smaller than that. Judging by the downvotes that other guy got, he wasn’t “absolutely correct!” as you seem to claim. Stop constantly editing your message.
        perching_aix 5mo ago

What on earth are you talking about? Assembly makes sense in desktop computing as well. Have you ever, for example, watched a video? What do you think powers the codecs, JSX?

xnorswap 5mo ago

I'd assume most are written in C or some other higher level language. Certainly I checked the x264 ( VLC implementation of h264 ) and that is C.

otherjason 5mo ago
The statistics reported by GitLab for the x264 repo (https://code.videolan.org/videolan/x264 https://code.videolan.org/videolan/x264) report that the project is 13.5% assembly; common utilities used in the inner loops of the codec have optimized assembly implementations for several CPU architectures.
- xnorswap 5mo ago
  I stand corrected.
  - jamal-kumar 5mo ago
    A lot of the encoding side on ffmpeg now uses hand-coded assembly optimizations to take advantage of avx512 instructions on newer x64 processors for "100x speed increase" since February 2025 in a stable form https://www.techspot.com/news/108715-ffmpeg-gets-100x-faster-avx-512-handwritten-assembly.html https://www.techspot.com/news/108715-ffmpeg-gets-100x-faster...

thisislife2 5mo ago

Yes, I do know that some Assembly is used in systems programming and other niches where it makes sense. To be clear, I was talking about the phase some of us go through (as amateurs) when we think everything would be "faster, smaller, better" if written in assembly - Python is slow. What about C or Pascal? Wouldn't asm be faster? ... but, as we all realise sooner or later, there's a reason we prefer to code in high-level or very high-level languages, and why pre-mature optimisation can be a real handicap.

hatefulheart 5mo ago
Ah yes, the niche that is video, audio, game and systems programming. When those three to four amateurs still doing those niche things grow up they’ll move on to real programming, like putting together a solid skills.md file.
- perching_aix 5mo ago
  Ah yes, assembly in contemporary game and systems programming. Definitely an everyday encounter, along with the millions of AV codec developers. What?
  - hatefulheart 5mo ago
    You’re absolutely right! If a project has less than 1 million active developers it must be old and shite!
    - perching_aix 5mo ago
      Sounds like I was absolutely right alright, and so was @thisislife2. Just yet another pitiful case of falling for the "hard truths <-> hurt feelings" reversal. Not even sure why. Something being niche is not a knock, not one way, not another. Such a weird thing to throw a sad fit like this about.
      - hatefulheart 5mo ago
        I interact with Assembly everyday and many of those around me do too. So I wouldn’t label it as niche. If there are thousands of people doing something in computing, it ain’t niche. It’s niche when the numbers are much smaller than that. Judging by the downvotes that other guy got, he wasn’t “absolutely correct!” as you seem to claim. Stop constantly editing your message.
        perching_aix 5mo ago