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Why does your data structure course cover assembly? I am just curious because in my school, they teach assembly bottom up, starting from digital logic and trans
by sand500 12y ago
Why does your data structure course cover assembly? I am just curious because in my school, they teach assembly bottom up, starting from digital logic and transistors and eventually get to C.
- candeira 12y agoI think it's a combination of three factors: 1. Historically, before it was taught in Java, this unit was taught in C, and it would have been a natural transition from building data structures via explicit pointer manipulation to explaining stack frames as a specialised data structure for handling scoped variables in function calls. 2. Despite the move to a higher level language (and, from assembly and machine code, even C is a higher level language), it's good for the students to get some exposure to the machine model, and what is going on deeper in the stack of turtles. 3. The lecturer who runs the course also has a bit of the Yorkshirewoman in her. So students learn a tiny bit of MIPS like they should eat their spinach and shower with cold water, uphill both ways, in the snow, or something.